


Refurbishment

by motleystarshine



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: After Game, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Game, Slow Build, Slow Burn, after time, in sunlight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:13:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motleystarshine/pseuds/motleystarshine
Summary: After the endgame, the Royal Retainers help rebuild Insomnia.The King died bringing light back to the world, but as the dust settled and the sun shone down on the city it was obvious that the future that had been given back to them was in need of some serious repairs.





	1. Chapter 1

When the sun rose again and their faith was rewarded, the Hunters and the Glaive rejoiced.

 

As the initial celebrations died down, there was a lull in activity. It was a familiar vacation for the real Hunters, who took to it with all the abandon of college students to drinking after final exams. Vis was, nominally, of their number, but she once the initial celebration was over, she found herself more on the sidelines with the members of the Kingslgaive. As the first of the Glaive started deciding between going back to the Crown City or heading back to the provinces, Vis made her decision. She was going back to Insomnia. It was her home, after all, and nowhere she’d been since fleeing had felt quite… _right._

 

She found a roadside map near the outpost and calculated a route back to the Crown City. It would take several days of walking, and several nights of camping alone outside. The latter of those two considerations gave her pause, but it would be far from her first time sleeping alone outdoors. There had been close scrapes since the fall of the city- Since the fall of _both_ cities, she corrected herself. During the darkness and before it she’d taken pleasure in being outdoors and she knew how to survive on her own. There’d been little choice once she’d started living on her own.

 

Once she had planned her route, she said goodbye to her compatriots, filled her pack with her share of the communal supplies, and shouldered her pack.

 

The world in daylight was a surprise after so much darkness. The light casting its glow on the world lifted her spirits, putting a bounce in her step no matter how many miles she walked.

 

It was strange, moving through so empty a landscape. Stranger still was how quickly the plants that had fallen dormant came back to life. The days seemed longer than they had before, the nights shorter, but with years of conditioning the short hours of darkness were the perfect amount for sleep. She slept so deeply and soundly that she didn’t worry about what might be lurking beyond her little camp sites.

 

The approach to Insomnia was when it became strange. The city on the horizon, and the dark protrusion of the gate where the road ended made her chest tighten.

 

She could _see_ home, and she hurried her steps toward it.

 

There was a little tent set up inside the gate, and underneath it a table and a chair.

 

And Monica.

 

Vis hadn’t thought she would or could miss someone with whom she spent most of their acquaintance speaking in the strategic terms with, but after three days hiking in to the city, Monica was the best thing she thought she had ever seen.

 

“A lot of familiar faces are coming my way this week,” Monica said, rising from her seat. In the sunlight, Monica’s pale hair looked ash blond. She set her clipboard down and came out from beneath her little tent. “It’s good to see you, Vis.”

 

Vis took it, surprised at just _how glad_ she was to see the Crownsguard woman. When Monica extended a hand to her, she took her hand and clasped her by the forearm. “Monica,” she said warmly, “you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

 

Monica’s grip on her was warm in return, and both of them smiled. It was Monica’s expression that sobered first. “After Lestallum, I was worried you might not have made it out.”

 

Withholding a shiver purely through belligerence, Vis shrugged. “I’m apparently pretty hard to kill,” she said.

 

“It all happened so fast, that day,” Monica said, eyes looking far beyond Vis as she spoke. “It was awful.”

 

The fall of Lestallum _had_ been awful, worse than awful, because it had happened so slowly. First the Darkness had crept up, the nights lengthening until there was no more daylight. In the Darkness, the daemons had increased. There were more and more casualties on simple supply runs, and as the plants fell dormant and the rations of food became slender, everything had begun falling apart.

 

When the city’s end came, Vis had a front-row seat for it.

 

The memory of it haunted her sleep, still.

 

“It was,” Vis agreed.

 

The two women released one another’s forearms, and stood in silence for a moment.

 

“Are there many people returning?” Vis asked, when she could think past the memories.

 

“It’s a slow day. You’re only the fourteenth person to come through,” Monica replied.

 

“That’s odd,” Vis replied. “I’d have thought people would be flocking back home.”

 

“I think most people are just enjoying the sunshine,” Monica confided.

 

“It’s been a long time coming,” Vis replied. “I can’t say I blame them.”

 

Monica nodded. “We’ve been busy clearing away the streets, to start, but large sections of the city have been flattened or are still impassable.”

 

“After how everything went down _that_ night, I’m not surprised,” Vis said. “Hunter HQ still has the place listed as a no-go zone. Structural integrity loss is the big fear, I think.”

 

“That may be what’s keeping more people from returning,” Monica said, tucking her clipboard against her chest and folding her arms. She nodded for a moment before glancing at Vis with a quirk of a smile on her lips, “You sound like an old pro at this.”

 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Vis replied. “I’m a bookkeeper.”

 

At that, Monica laughed aloud. “After all I saw you take care of _since_ the Fall, it’s hard to believe.”

 

“Well, I may have been more of a Jill-of-all-trades at my office,” Vis admitted. “Someone had to make sure things got done, and it usually ended up being me.”

 

“A trait that’s served you well since,” Monica replied. “I’ll still never understand how you weren’t scouted for the Crownsguard.”

 

It was an oft-repeated comment of Monica’s.

 

“Probably because I wasn’t a noble,” Vis replied, as she usually did.

 

“Not everyone in the Crownsguard was a noble,” Monica replied. “Prompto-”

 

“Was a personal friend of the King,” Vis replied. “And I was twenty-three, and everything that meant at the time.”

 

“It’s less about where you were and what you’re capable of,” Monica replied. “You’re better than good with a lance.”

 

“Maybe, but _back then_ , I’d never had more than a basic self-defense class. Any weapon I’ve held since then I picked up after the Fall of Insomnia to keep from starving.”

 

“You’d still have had potential.”

 

“Yeah, the potential to get my ass handed to me during the evaluation. I dated a guy in college who went through the boot camp, I read the disclosure forms he had to sign. I wouldn’t have measured up.”

 

Monica shook her head with a little shrug. “You’re as good as one of us now.”

 

That meant a lot, coming from Monica. Her good opinion was hard-won. Vis gave her a warm smile for it and then realized that Crownsguard Elshett was out on gate duty. “So, if you’re here greeting newcomers…”

 

“There are a couple hundred people that are back. We’re all working to get the city cleaned up and back to livable shape. We’re assigning people to temporary dormitories and work crews for now.”

 

“I’m surprised you’re not somewhere more centrally located, after the way you handled Lestallum.”

 

“It turns out knowing the most people means I’ve been tapped for the job of sorting everyone into places.”

 

“Sounds like a blast,” Vis said.

 

They both chuckled.

 

Monica tucked her hair over her ear pulled her clipboard from her chest, detaching a pen from the top of it. She turned her attention to the pages there, turning several over until she found what she wanted and then began writing. “Last I knew, you were steady on your feet and mostly uninjured,” she said, looking up to confirm that. When Vis nodded, she lowered her eyes to what she was noting down before she went on, “If you’re up for it, I’d like to assign you to the eastern dormitory for now.”

 

“Up for it? Do the dormitories correspond with the zones for the work crews?” Vis asked.

 

“How did you know we’d have zones?” Monica asked.

 

“I’m more than passing familiar with the way you lay things out, is all,” Vis replied with a wink.

 

“Generally,” Monica admitted with a responding smile. “Though the dormitories have more to do with which work crew you’re assigned to. Why do you ask?”

 

“Well, it’s just that I used to live in Austellus.”

 

“We’re nowhere near that far, yet,” Monica admitted. “We’re starting with clearing the streets of cars and debris, and from there we’re setting in to repairing what infrastructure we can.”

 

“Well, maybe I’ll find my place as we go along.”

 

“You just might,” Monica said with a smile. “Though it will take a while. Austellus was near the eastern wall, wasn’t it?”

 

“There was always a nice breeze in the spring,” Vis said wistfully. “So, do I report to the crew or-”

 

“The dormitory, to start.” Monica finished making notes on the paper and tucked the pen back in to the top of the clipboard. “It’s a bit of a walk, so you’ll need to get going if you want to make it there in time for dinner. Did you ever visit the Citadel?”

 

“Office manager, Monica, not Crownsguard. The closest I ever got was the subway stop outside of it. They had this great bookstore in the Crown District.”

 

“Well, head straight down this road and you’ll make it there. It’s hard to miss the Citadel, even after all that’s happened. Be sure to follow the cleared path. The Retainers emptied it out before we even got here, so you’ll be able to make it past even where the streets are caved in. When you reach the Citadel gates, head inside and tell whoever meets you that Cid says hello.”

 

“That sounds rather strange,” Vis replied.

 

“It’s supposed to. It’s a code. That’s how they’ll know I sent you.”

 

“Whatever you say Monica,” Vis agreed. She turned toward the Citadel, glad of her sturdy walking boots, only to pause. “They don’t leave you out here _all day_ , do they?”

 

“No, though I find I don’t mind the sunshine,” she said. “I’ll be back at the dorms before nightfall.”

 

Vis nodded, adjusting the straps of her pack and starting down the wide, rubble-clear road that would take her to the Citadel. The afternoon sun seemed slow to sink toward the horizon, and somehow the shadows didn’t seem as deep as they had before the darkness, like Eos was welcoming the light back.  

 

Insomnia was quiet around her as she walked, the only sounds stone crumbling from the damaged buildings in the gentle breeze that was blowing through and her footsteps against the debris. There were large stretches of buildings that seemed almost untouched by the Fall, followed by entire neighborhoods that were flattened or nothing more than scorched craters.

 

She hoped Austellus had survived.

 

Even if the trees had to be replanted and there was damage to the buildings, she’d _liked_ her little borough of the city with its tree-lined streets and circular parks. It was a little quieter than the rest of Insomnia, more like a suburb than part of the capital of Lucis. She’d been worried, _ten years ago,_ that it couldn’t last so short when the population was growing and the closed borders prevented any sort of regular urban sprawl. 

 

And then the Crown City had fallen and there were no more worries about redevelopment.

 

The streets she walked through now made even Austellus seem crowded and busy. Her footsteps echoed off the buildings as she walked what felt like the whole length of the city just to get to the Citadel. It took several hours, and by the time she got there, the sky was a darkening amber and all she wanted was a bed.

 

Instead, she reached what looked, to her tired body, to be a seemingly endless staircase.

 

She didn’t _have_ to climb it, but she was still outside and the sun was sinking towards the horizon. Somewhere past the top of that staircase there was supposed to be a bed and there really, really ought to be food. Her options were to sit down where she was and hope that someone came down to carry her up – unlikely, considering the state of the city as well as the state _and smell_ of her after so many days on the road – or to climb the stairs herself and see what was at the end of her days’ long journey back to the Crown City.

 

She chose the stairs.

 

At the top of the staircase there was another familiar face.

 

“Libertus?”

 

“That’s the name, don’t wear it out,” he said. Then the heavy-set Glaive looked up from where he was counting a stack of supplies. “Familiar face,” he added. “A bunch a’those today. It’s been a while, though, I think. Not since Lestallum, right?”

 

“Before it fell,” Vis replied, making it to the top of the stairs.

 

Libertus stepped over to meet her, offering a handshake. Vis took it, surprised at how good it was to see him as well. “That was some piece of bad luck, eh?” Libertus asked.

 

“I don’t think that was _bad luck_ any more than what happened in Insomnia.”

 

“Nice to have someone else with a positive outlook.”

 

That got a chuckle out of her. This felt normal, a lot like how it had been working with the Glaive in Lestallum. That felt a little strange standing here on the posh steps of the Citadel, but after the last ten years nothing was particularly strange. She’d come to think that any day above ground was a good day.

 

“Ah… Cid says hello,” she added.

 

“Ah, east dormitory then,” Libertus said, nodding. “Come on, I doubt there’s anyone else headed up after you. Monica never makes them walk the distance if it’s gettin’ dark out.”

 

“Probably wouldn’t go over well,” Vis replied.

 

“You’re in with Prompto to start,” Libertus said as he led her in to the halls. “He’s in charge of scoutin’ where we should clean out next. You’ll need your reflexes, so don’t let him push you out the door in the morning if you haven’t gotten enough sleep. We haven’t reached the hospitals to get supplies out, and these days falling rock will put you out of commission for good.”

 

The halls of the Citadel were equally quiet as the streets beyond it, but not as big and echoing as the walk through the city had been. Libertus showed her to the dormitory – what looked to be an actual Guard barracks – so that she could stow her bag before he turned her to the cafeteria to get dinner.

 

Everyone looked up as she entered, and Vis was surprised to see that most everyone seemed to be someone she at least recognized a little from the dark years.

 

“It’s a small world anymore, I guess,” she said softly.

 

“Smaller than you’d think, eh?” Libertus said, nudging her in the arm. “Oy you lot, this is Vis. Just got in.”

 

There was a general greeting, a few warm smiles and a few respectful nods and then everyone went back to their meals and soft-voiced conversations. The feeling in the room was one of tired out people ending their day. Vis felt right at home among them after all the walking.

 

Libertus kept her company for the meal, taking up his plate right alongside her, and the two settled at one of the tables without much comment.

 

“Hey what barrack is she in?” a bright voice asked.

 

“Ask me that tomorrow, Prompto,” Libertus replied, pointedly taking a bite of his food.

 

Vis looked up and found that one of the Royal Retainers was peering at the two of them. He had a shock of blond hair on his head and a short-cropped start at facial hair. He winked at Vis mischievously as he went on, “But I’m asking you now, Libertus.”

 

“And she needs a good night’s rest before you go draggin’ her off in to the wreckage. IF she’s even part of your crew,” Libertus added before Prompto could seize on his little slip.

 

“But I need to plan my route for tomorrow,” Prompto whined. “It’s different if there’s another body to count on.”

 

Libertus gave Vis a look, and she shrugged. He sighed. “Why don’t you ask her then?”

 

Prompto turned to Vis, eyes sparkling. “Well, Vis?” he asked, hopefully.

 

“East,” she admitted.

 

“Yes!” Prompto said, doing a little victory dance. He took a chair at the table with the two of them. “I bet Monica assigned you to start with me because you’re tall. It comes in handy. Are you from Insomnia? Familiar with the city?”

 

Libertus chuckled and shook his head.

 

Vis tapped her plate with her fork. “Can I answer all that tomorrow?” she asked. “I feel like I can barely put words in the right order tonight.”

 

“I suppose,” Prompto huffed, leaning his cheek on his hand.

 

“The only way in’ta the city is on foot, Prompto,” Libertus reminded the blond retainer. “She walked here and then walked to the Citadel from the gates. Give’er a break.”

 

“Day _after_ tomorrow then,” Prompto said, appraisingly. “But we get started _early_.” He grinned and waved as he rose and headed off through the cafeteria, stretching his arms overhead.

 

“You’d think he didn’t spend all day scrambling up buildings and such,” Libertus grumbled.

 

“I can’t even think straight,” Vis replied.

 

“Finish up and go get some rest, then,” Libertus replied. “Rebuilding the city isn’t like a hunt, it’ll take a while.”

 

Vis didn’t argue with that. She finished up her meal and let Libertus show her to the east dormitory, and then she passed out.

 

For a day and a half.

 

When she woke up it was with an exhaustion hangover, and all she was good for was shoveling down food and passing out again for another twelve hours. She surprised herself by being able to sleep so soundly, resting enough that she didn’t even mind when one of the other scouts in the dorm roused her to get headed down to breakfast before there was even light in the windows.

 

“So, back to my questions from yesterday,” Prompto said as Vis came to join breakfast table where the scouts all gathered every morning. He was almost too chipper for reason at that hour. “Are you from Insomnia? Familiar with the city?”

 

“I grew up here,” Vis asked, carrying her tray over to the table he was seated at.

 

There was only one other person at the table, another woman who had dark red hair and bright blue eyes. She offered a smile as Vis came over, whispering, “Don’t worry, his questions shouldn’t last too long.”

 

“That’s good, that’s good,” Prompto said, seemingly not hearing the woman’s whispered words. “What part did you spend the most time in?”

 

“Austellus,” Vis replied. “I mean recently, but my office was on the other side of town in Turrim.”

 

“How did you commute?”

 

“Depended on the weather,” Vis replied, “some walking, but mostly the subway.”

 

“And did you hang out anywhere else? I mean I was all over the place before the Fall, but that’s just because Iggy encouraged me to-” he stopped, abruptly, and Vis tilted her head. “He thought it’d be good if I was familiar with the city,” Prompto concluded.

 

“I spent most of my days off in the reserve areas, so I don’t think that’ll be much use.”

 

“Yeah, you look like the outdoorsy type,” Prompto said.

 

“I really wasn’t that much, before,” Vis replied. She wasn’t entirely sure where the questions were leading, but she had a feeling he was looking to see how good she would be as a scout. Though how she spent her free time and where she liked to hang out sounded more like the prelude to being asked on a date than they did anything to do with work. Still, he had asked. “But it was peaceful out there, you know?”

 

“Yeah,” Prompto said, absently. Then he sighed. “Well, I guess you won’t have much practical knowledge of where we’re headed…”

 

“You didn’t ask what she did for work,” the red headed woman said. “You can’t possibly know what she does and doesn’t know without asking that.”

 

“Jeez, Ilda, give me a break, would you?” Prompto griped.

 

“No,” Ilda replied, pursing her lips and giving him a stern look.

 

“Oh, _come on_ , don’t act like I’m-”

 

“You’re so irresponsible it’s a miracle that-”

 

“I worked in property management,” Vis said, interrupting the impending argument.

 

Both of them turned to look at her with brows lifted. Prompto’s expression quickly shifted from surprise to elation, a broad grin blossoming. The red headed woman started chuckling.

 

“I have the best team ever,” Prompto said, rising from the table to do a little victory dance.

 

The redheaded woman held a hand out over the table. “I’m Ilda Velorum,” she said.

 

“Vis,” she replied, shaking her hand.

 

“Oh, I know you, _Arbiter,”_ Ilda said, smiling over the handshake.

 

“That damn nickname,” Vis replied with a huff, glad when Prompto turned his attention to a few other newcomers.

 

“You really pulled us out of the fire,” Ilda said, shifting to sit closer to Vis when it seemed their conversation was better kept a little private, “whether you like it or not, you earned it. The Retainers might not know you by it at first, but it’ll follow.”

 

Vis rubbed her neck. “Oh, Ignis already knows that nickname. If it weren’t for working with him on acquiring the Tombs, Zoriedd would out me.”

 

“I always thought she just preferred having someone else with an ostentatious nickname.”

 

Vis chuckled at that, it was true enough. She was glad to be able to laugh about it, at least a little. Most of her memories of Lestallum were colored by its fall. The blood and the darkness were enough that she hadn’t managed to take herself back or even talk about it since the light had come back. It was too soon, and all, but… there were things to take away from it that weren’t so bad.

 

Just as she was about to ask Ilda about how the scouting was deployed, one of the newcomers – a sturdy looking young man with a shock of hair so red it was orange – slapped Prompto’s hand from his shoulder. “Look, you’re crazy. I’m not some badass Royal Retainer swinging from questionable ledges and throwing myself off buildings.”

 

“It was _one time_ ,” Prompto replied. “And you didn’t have to do it!”

 

“How else was I supposed to take notes? You can’t judge distance by a photograph!”

 

“By a what?” Vis asked.

 

Ilda sighed. “It’s how he takes notes,” she supplied with a sigh. “None of us like it very much. He’s been through all eight of us as running partners, some of us can keep up, but-”

 

“That’s what the GPS is for,” Prompto said in a placating tone. “I know it sounds mental, but-”

 

“It _is_ mental!”

 

Prompto’s easy expression stiffened to a more somber one. “It’s not,” he said in a soft voice.

 

“Whether it is or isn’t, I’d rather head out with someone else,” the orange-haired man said.

 

“Alright then, Quald. You can go with Kitera today,” Prompto said. “Vis can come with me.”

 

“The newbie won’t last a day with you,” Quald snorted.

 

“Wanna make a bet on that?” Prompto asked.

 

Ilda rolled her eyes, mouthed ‘boys’, and tucked back in to her breakfast.

 

“I can’t tell who that’s more insulting to,” Vis said, propping her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands.

 

Both men turned to look at her, tempers still a bit flared.

 

“It’s not an insult,” Quald said. “Not to you, anyway.”

 

“Hey!” Prompto grumbled. “It’s not-”

 

“I can take care of myself, thank you,” Vis said to Quald. Then she gave Prompto a look. “But you’re going to have to explain this camera thing that has everyone so up in arms.”

 

And _that_ was how she ended up partnering Prompto.

 

*

 

It was impossible not to meet everyone staying in the Citadel at some point. Vis was surprised to find that there were only a hundred and fifty people that had returned. The numbers were increasing from day to day, but not as steadily as they’d need to if Insomnia was going to fill back up. Everyone rolled their sleeves up and got their hands dirty.

 

Everyone. Including the three Royal Retainers.

 

Prompto was a ball of energy, and rather than taking notes on his map he photographed everything as he went and matched the photos from his camera up against the map later. Vis preferred to work more directly off of the map, taking notes and estimating distances as they went.

 

The other scouts were consistently astounded at the way that Prompto and Vis bickered about their work.

 

Once they found the balance between the two styles of working, they made a pretty good team.

 

Prompto was familiar with everyone he met, Vis found, and most people enjoyed his company. She didn’t have any complaints about his attitude or his conversation.

 

What Vis couldn’t stand was how awful he was at turning updating the maps in the office.

 

The scouting teams didn’t spend much time in the office – a big, broad room with fancy carved stone that was covered in a layer of dust and ash everywhere above arm-height – but Vis knew where it was because she’d seen Prompto being strong-armed in to the place by a slender brunette with angry amber eyes. Two weeks of losing her partner for an hour in the mornings to enforced map updates and Vis took it upon herself to sneak in after her shift and do them herself.

 

The office was usually empty during mealtimes, even with the slight increase in population there weren’t enough people to staff things twenty-four hours. One of the office staff – Misha, who remembered Vis from Lestallum – had worked in the Citadel before the Fall, and explained that back then the offices were all staffed 24/7.

 

Now it was a dark, slightly dusty room with a hastily erected screen on one wall and a row of temporary tables with papers and tablets strewn out across it.

 

Vis flipped on the lights, curing the room of its darkness, and headed over to the cartography station.

 

Technology in the Citadel was becoming more reliable, but not so much that the scouts could be allowed take one of the few intact and powered tablets with them. She didn’t blame everyone for coming to that conclusion, they’d be worse off losing what they’d regained.

 

She and Prompto had covered a new neighborhood, so there was plenty to put in. She’d already made separate lists of the supplies they had found, ones that she’d turn over to the Royal Adviser’s inbox once she was finished with the map.

 

But first, the map.

 

Using the tablet in a cluttered, half-dirty room felt like she was back at her old job, before the Fall, and Vis fell to her task with enough focus that she barely noticed her surroundings.

 

“Look, Gladio, everyone else is eating, just lay off for a while. You won’t get anything else done this evening, anyway!” a frustrated voice barged in to the office as the door opened so forcefully it almost bounced on its hinges.

 

“Don’t,” a deep voice growled back in a dangerous tone. “I’m checking the damn map, because-”

 

Vis looked up from her work as she heard mention of the map.

 

The two men were stopped barely in the door. Well, she thought it was two of them. The one she could see was taller than she was used to, and anyone behind him was blocked out by the bulk of him. It didn’t take a genius to recognize the Royal Shield, even if one wasn’t familiar with him.

 

One of the Hunters was the first to make the whistling comment that the King’s Shield was sex on legs. Vis couldn’t remember who it was, but the statement was no less true seven years later than it had been the first time she’d heard it.

 

At the time he’d gone about with a determined scowl on his face and twenty pounds of leather clothing to go with the facial scars and rippling muscles. As the light left the skies, he’d been in and out of Lestallum from time to time, mostly facing off with members of the Kingsglaive for training. He hadn’t talked much, then, but from what she knew of Ignis, at least, the Shield had likely been preoccupied with his duty. He’d had a forbidding sort of presence, back then, like a porcupine with its quills out. He hadn’t around making conversation with people, and he _liked it that way._

 

The only difference between this version of him and the one during the Darkness, at least that she could see, was that he was dressed differently. He wore thick utility pants marked with dirt and scuffed in places. His skin, for a Lucian, was sun-kissed and his hair had just a faint hint of sun-lightening to the dark fall of it.

 

He was _still_ sex on legs.

 

And Vis _wasn’t_ staring. She just hadn’t quite expected to meet him again while she was sneaking about doing the work Prompto tended to put off.

 

“Moritus,” the Shield said, gesturing at her, “what was that about no one’s working?”

 

An auburn headed man peeked out around the Shield, and scowled. “No one’s _supposed to be working,”_ he said.

 

“We don’t exactly have map data entry penciled in to our schedule,” Vis said, holding up the sheet she was working on.

 

“It’s _dinner time_ ,” Moritus grumbled.

 

“And if you two don’t hold me up too much, I should be able to make it before the food runs out,” Vis replied, turning her attention back to the tablet and the day’s map.

 

The Shield came over to where she was working, though, and her eyes were drawn up as he came over. Gladiolus Amicita was the size of a tree. Not just his height – somewhere north of six feet that she couldn’t begin to guess from where she was seated – but also his physique. The man had a solid figure that looked like it had been sculpted by someone, and not even the dustiness of his clothes or the work dirt on his skin could hide how fit he was. Vis _didn’t_ stare. Really, she didn’t, but that was only because she’d had years to practice putting a vacant look on over what she was really feeling. It had come in handy when facing daemons in the darkness, and now, apparently, it was doing well at disguising how attracted she felt to the man towering over her.

 

And how long had it been since she’d been attracted to someone?

 

“You’re working on the map?” he asked.

 

Vis motioned to the tablet she was working on, with its dock connector that was attached to the mainframe that fed the server tower that was being pieced back together by the technicians. The technology was still present in the city, in dusty boxes in store rooms and the like, but it wasn’t just a matter of plugging things back in to power and turning them on. She knew as much from her old office, a lifetime ago, but not enough to help make anything work again.

 

“Only place to do it, with the way the network is acting these days and how precious the connected tablets are.”

 

“Who’s your scouting partner?” the Shield asked.

 

“Your friend Prompto,” she replied. “Why?”

 

The Shield huffed at that, putting a hand up to his temple. “Damn. That mop head should be helping you out with this.”

 

“Prompto has about as much focus for paperwork as he does fear of heights,” Vis replied, turning her attention sternly to the work in front of her and away from the attractive man asking questions about her work.

 

“Meaning he’s wreckless and absent-minded about it all,” the Shield said.

 

“Mmhmmm,” Vis agreed, staring at the map and the tablet like she was working but unable to focus on the conversions she would need to do to accurately update the data sets.

 

“Shit,” the Shield said.

 

“So, you come back in the morning,” Moritus replied. “It’s not a big deal, and-”

 

The Shield turned and–

 

Vis peeked up when the room went silent to see that the Shield was glaring so hard at the auburn-haired man that he took a step back.

 

“I’ve told you, no one’s going out tomorrow until we double check the print outs against the master.”

 

“So, check it,” Moritus said, frowning.

 

There was obviously a gap in understanding on the part of this Moritus fellow. The Shield seemed to be losing patience with him, and given the fierceness of his mood, Vis spoke up.

 

“There’s only one terminal for checking the digital master.”

 

Vis looked between the two of them as she spoke. She held up that terminal in demonstration, the tablet she was using. Moritus seemed to get it at last, and he huffed a sigh.

 

She considered how much ground she and Prompto had covered that day, glancing at the notes she’d made. If she knocked off early, she’d have to skip either breakfast or dinner tomorrow to catch up. Still, she knew that the Shield was heading up the crews responsible for clearing the passages she was marking off, and if there was something holding them up it wouldn’t matter what she did with the map.

 

“Just… Let me get the blocked passages marked off and then it’s all yours.”

 

“At least _one_ of you is reasonable,” Moritus grumbled.

 

Her offer seemed to surprise the Shield, who turned to look back at her with lifted brows. “Your work…”

 

Vis shrugged. “It just means I get to eat dinner like a normal person instead of filling a plate at the end of the line. Don’t worry about it.”

 

The Shield stared at her for a moment. Vis motioned him to take a step back so she could get to work. She figured that if she caught up with Prompto during the meal, they could hand out the supply spots by marking everyone’s print outs rather than getting new ones. Puzzling through the logistics of it was enough to distract her from the two men waiting to take over the terminal, and she worked her way through the calculations on auto-pilot.

 

Once she was finished she rose, tucking her print out back into her hip-pouch, and made a broad gesture. “Server’s all yours, gentlemen,” she said, coming out from behind the table.

 

A hand spread out in front of her, stopping her progress to the door.

 

Blinking, Vis looked up to find that the Shield was looking at her intently. His expression was softened, though not quite smiling, and she noticed for the first time that his eyes were an amber color that looked warm even in the harsh light of the computer room. “Thank you,” he said, sincerely.

 

“You’re welcome,” Vis replied.

 

“If you’d rather flirt with the pretty scout, Gladio, I can go to dinner.”

 

“You’re not getting out of this, Mori,” the Shield replied, “it’s mostly your fault we have to do it.”

 

When his attention returned to his comrade, Vis slipped past and headed for the door. She figured that they’d get more done if she wasn’t there to comment on, and pushing back her meal times made her stomach rumble more often than not. The cafeteria was the same muted bustle of bodies cramming food in to themselves as she entered, and she let herself get lost in the press of it until she found herself seated with a plate alongside the other scouts.

 

“Haven’t seen you this zoned out in a while,” Ilda said, nudging a glass of water across the table at her.

 

“What are you talking about,” Pyotra said, “we haven’t seen her at a meal in a while.”

 

The two women were among Vis’s favorites on the scouting team. Ilda more than Pyotra, but that could easily be that Pyotra generally spent less time socializing than she did with her husband and the handful of Glaive that had come back to the Crown City. Vis sometimes envied her the tight knit family that the Glaive were, especially as she had yet to find anyone who had known her before The Fall. It was strange, completely rebuilding her life in her thirties.

 

“Yeah, well, you two should try making _Prompto_ do paperwork,” Vis replied.

 

“No thank you,” Ilda said, holding up both hands and nearly losing her fork in the process. “He’s too much trouble.”

 

“You can say that again,” Pyotra said with a grin. She’d already finished her meal, but seemed content to stay and chat with the two of them. “Has been for years, but he’s easy on the eyes.”

 

Ilda snickered at that. “The person to ask about that is Vis, currently.”

 

Vis held up a hand. “Not really,” she replied. “He’s my work partner, not my eye candy.”

 

“Then you’ve got eye candy?” Pyotra asked.

 

“Not… really,” Vis replied.

 

Pyotra made an excited noise at that and leaned closer, but their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a knot of the Glaive that had come in from their work detail. The crowd in the cafeteria was small, less than a hundred people, so there were greetings back and forth. Pyotra’s attention left their conversation entirely to scan the group coming in. Among the Glaive was Bojden, Pyotra’s husband.

 

“I’ll see you two in the morning for orders, yeah?” Pyotra said, gathering up her tray.

 

“Tell the guys we said hi,” Ilda said, waving to their colleague as she went.

 

Vis did the same, offering her own salutations.

 

“You know when you hesitate, it makes it seem like you do have someone you use as eye candy,” Ilda said, taking a bite from her plate. “Not that we don’t have enough fit people about, but Pyotra’s always had a thing about ferreting out who has a crush on whom. Even back in Lestallum.”

 

Nodding in acceptance, Vis let her thoughts drift back to the way that the Shield had looked leaning over the table toward her. He was nice to look at, but men that looked that good were rarely interested in her. “To be honest, I’m just hoping to make it back home.”

 

Ilda didn’t seem phased by that, instead she smiled. “Where was it that you lived?”

 

“Austellus,” Vis replied, thinking of her little apartment overlooking the park.

 

“Oh wow,” Ilda replied. “That’s lucky. All that greenery and the short buildings. You could really see the sky from Austellus.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“I lived in Escarta,” Ilda replied. “Which is boring, I know, but I liked the high-rise life, you know? There was something really great about having everything at my fingertips. I mean I had a gym, a salon, a grocery store, _and_ amazing takeout that delivered.”

 

“I used to fantasize about that,” Vis replied. “Having everything close by would’ve been such a convenience. But my office was over that way, and I just… I couldn’t relax there, you know? I needed somewhere more outdoorsy.”

 

“I guess I can see that about you,” Ilda said.

 

“You wouldn’t have back then,” Vis said. “I wasn’t a very active person.”

 

“Really? That’s a surprise, you took to it so well.”

 

“That was always a matter of surviving,” Vis replied. She polished off the last of her food. “I was never really comfortable as a Hunter, to be honest.”

 

“Never would’ve pegged it,” Ilda replied. “You fit in so well driving trucks full of Glaive and wielding a spear facing off with daemons I figured you were born to it.”

 

“Honestly, it terrified me for a long time. I mean you get used to it, you know? But…  I was glad when it was over.”

 

“Well considering how soon you came back to the city, I’m not surprised. You were in the first hundred or so to make it back. I think you managed to surprise Monica, which rarely happens for any reason.”

 

“I can’t seem to catch up with her since she’s gotten off greeter duty,” Vis said. “Have you seen her?”

 

“She’s permanently assigned to the Marshal’s detail,” Ilda said. “Not that it’s any big surprise. What with the Retainers doing the heavy lifting on getting the city restored, it makes sense that the Marshal’s helping to keep everything running smoothly. And no one does _that_ so well as Monica.”

 

They both chuckled at just how true that was. Vis hadn’t encountered Monica anywhere since the Fall that didn’t include her being the logistical lynchpin of the Crownsguard. She knew everyone, and sometimes it seemed like she knew every _thing_ that was going on. As both she and Ilda had finished their meals, they took their trays back up to the stack of dirty dishes. On the way back to the hall, they shared a big yawn and stretched. With a mutual nod they turned for the east dormitory.

 

“Just promise me I don’t have to pull water from another three-story building tomorrow, and I’ll be your new best friend,” Ilda said as they headed in to the big communal bathroom to get cleaned up for the night.

 

“I can always give that to Aurelius and Heather.”

 

“Best friend status confirmed,” Ilda said.

 

Their laughter echoed through the room, and the two of them went about washing up before they passed out in their bunks.

 

Sleep was always easy after a long day of scouting, which was the other reason that Vis was so fond of it. Unlike working with the Hunters during the Darkness, running with Prompto and his scouts was just physical exertion with an occasional bout of stomach dropping from a jump. By the time she finished eating and cleaning up at night she was so tired her mind couldn’t even manage a dream.

 

It made the repetition of the days worthwhile, though there were sometimes hiccups like what had happened that evening. Instead of dwelling on it, Vis focused on the job at hand. She had taken the biggest printout they had and sectioned it off into little folds based on how much distance the scouts were covering each day. The progress was slow, but it felt like they were accomplishing something, and she knew that the more days that passed the closer she’d get to Austellus and her own little piece of home in the city.

 

None of that made her any happier to have to hurry Prompto back to the Citadel the next day so that she could get caught up on the work that she’d skipped so the Shield could get his look at the master map, but it was one inconvenience in a string of long, hard days. She’d get over it.

 

And the little server room at least had a comfortable chair.

 

Vis settled in for two days’ worth of updates and calculations to enter.

 

Footsteps in the doorway drew a sigh from her, and Vis looked up to see who was interrupting today.

 

The Shield was blocking the doorway again, but this time he didn’t seem to be frustrated or accompanied by anyone. He was dressed the same as the day before, dirt-smudged utility pants and all. His hands were behind his back. “You don’t have to make that face, I haven’t come to boot you off the terminal again,” he said as he came in. “I brought you dinner.”

 

“You brought me… dinner?”

 

“Mmhmm,” he replied, bringing his hands out from behind himself.

 

He was carrying a tray from the cafeteria with too much food on it for one person. When she didn’t reply, he drew a chair over from one of the tables, stopping it just far enough away from the computers and the print outs that none of the food would spill on anything important. He made a show of setting the tray down on the chair.

 

“I figured we can’t have the chief cartographer going hungry just to do her job,” he said.

 

“If I eat that much food, I’ll have to be rolled down the streets,” Vis said.

 

The Shield hooked his fingers in the back of another chair and brought it over next to the one he’d set the tray on and turned it around backwards before taking a seat. “Well then it’s a good thing I invited myself to join you.”

 

Vis chuckled at that, shaking her head. The scent of food was an appealing one, thought. She leaned forward to peek over the table at it.

 

Most of what he’d picked out was finger food, and there was a little stack of napkins to one side of it. That was thoughtful, at least, as anything that required utensils would mean she’d have to leave off the tablet work.

 

“I can just leave your part and get out of your hair, if you’d rather, but a good friend of mine regularly reminds me that meals taste better with friends.”

 

“From the way Prompto tells it, Ignis has that tattooed across his chest,” Vis replied.

 

“Just about.”

 

They both chuckled at that, and the Shield folded his arms on the chair back as he laughed. The sound of his laughter was deep and rich, and Vis couldn’t help but smile as she watched him. Maybe there _were_ some things that were different about him now from when they’d all been in the Darkness.

 

“Well then,” he said when the laughter had faded. “What’ll it be? Solo dining for the evening?”

 

“You brought it all the way here,” Vis said, shaking her head. “Just let me get these calculations finished and I’ll take a bite.”

 

He nodded, picking up one of the more complicated pieces of food, and proceeded to eat his dinner. Vis waited for a moment, to see if he would say anything, but he didn’t. It was strange, having company while she was doing math, but it wasn’t a bad kind of strange.

 

She didn’t even remember he was in the room until she was reaching for the tablet and his hand slid between her and the screen with a napkin-wrapped half-sandwich. She looked up and found his amber eyes watching her intently. “You said a bite after the calculations,” he said, offering the food to her.

 

“I did, didn’t I?” she asked. She took it, checking the contents, and plucked the onions off before taking a bite.

 

“Getting enough food in you is important,” the Shield said, settling back down on his seat and plucking a handful of carrot sticks from the tray. “After how lean everyone’s diets were during the Darkness, and with all the activity… you need to eat.”

 

“I think that’s the first time a man ever encouraged me to eat more,” Vis replied, sitting back from the tablet to eat the sandwich he’d given her. It had been a long time since lunch, and it tasted better than she thought it had any right to.

 

“Yeah, well,” the Shield replied, “some men don’t know their ass from their elbow.”

 

“Some women are the same,” Vis replied, chuckling at that. She polished off the sandwich shortly and wiped her fingers clean on the napkin before scooping up the tablet.

 

The Shield again fell silent, letting her work. They went along like that, small quips with full mouths and then periods of silence, until they’d finished off the tray he’d brought and she was done with her map entry. He was scooping up the used napkins as the first of the second-shift operations folks started to make their way in. Vis gave a little salute as she tucked her map away, and the two of them got out of the regular crew’s way.

 

“Thanks,” Vis said as they stepped in to the hallway, moving out of the way of the returning staff.

 

“Don’t turn this around. This was me thanking you,” the Shield said.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Vis replied. She stretched her arms up overhead, not bothering to fight the yawn that came after.

 

The Shield watched her and his lips quirked in a grin. “You look fit for a wash and bed,” he said. “Don’t let me keep you, yeah?”

 

Vis nodded in reply, and the two of them headed down the cracked, dusty hallway until their paths split. The Shield took their dinner tray back to the cafeteria, and Vis headed up the stairs to the wash rooms. They didn’t exchange any particular parting pleasantries, but Vis found herself smiling as she found her bunk that evening.

 

It had been… nice.

 

*

 


	2. Interlude: Sisterly Concerns

“Look, Iris, I know you’re worried about him, but the big guy’s doing all right,” Prompto said as the two of them stood outside the cafeteria, tucked away in a little alcove out of the flow of bodies on the central floor. “This is hard, on all of us, you can’t expect him to just bounce back to who he was before like nothing happened.”

 

“That’s not what I mean, Prom,” Iris replied, shaking her head so hard her hair shook. “I mean he’s… he’s pulling away. I don’t know if he’s sleeping, and he’s angry all the time.”

 

“That kinda sounds normal to me,” Prompto replied.

 

“Well it’s not normal. Not for Gladdy.”

 

Prompto resisted the urge to tell Iris that she wasn’t exactly in a position to evaluate what her brother was or wasn’t like. There was quite the age gap between the two of them, and after all that had happened with Noctis… even Prompto was having trouble holding things together so much anymore. It had to be worse for Gladio, it just had to.

 

Instead of unloading that on a concerned little sister, Prompto reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “The best thing you can do, right now, is just be there for him,” he said. “If he wants to talk, he’ll talk, if he doesn’t at least he won’t be alone, yeah?”

 

Iris scowled at that. “You sound like Ignis.”

 

“Iggy’s a smart guy,” Prompto replied.

 

“Ignis wouldn’t have come through half so well if he’d kept everything bottled up all the time,” Iris retorted.

 

Prompto found he really didn’t have the patience for this conversation. He understood what she was talking about, Gladio was his friend so of course he did, but it wasn’t that easy to sort things out. Especially not what Iris was afraid of. And the more she tried to get him to do something, the more annoyed he was getting. He put a finger on her lips to stop her from protesting further.

 

Ignis hadn’t done well at first, but he _was_ doing better now. He’d worked hard to get to where he was.

 

“Being pushy about it isn’t going to make Gladio ‘better’ any faster, Iris,” Prompto said.

 

Iris pouted at him, and Prompto was impressed with himself that he wasn’t falling all over himself about having a pretty girl giving him puppy dog eyes. Iris was Gladio’s kid sister, but she was still-

 

“Let’s just eat, yeah?” Prompto asked, gesturing to the cafeteria doors that were just a few feet down the hall from them.

 

“Oh, all right,” Iris said, still pouting.

 

They went in to the cafeteria, getting gobbled up by the crowd as they went. Still pouting, Iris kept quiet as they made their way through the line with everyone else. Prompto let his eyes drift through the room.

 

It wasn’t hard to pick out Gladio. He’d always been a big guy, and even with people coming back to the city like they were he was still bigger than everyone around. He was sitting at a table that had people from his division – the demolition crew, mostly – and they were talking, making jokes with each other, but Gladio…

 

Gladio was just eating, quietly.

 

Prompto knew that look. He saw it on his face in the mirror sometimes, he _felt_ himself wearing it.

 

Maybe he’d just had longer to deal with feeling those kinds of things, maybe he had a better coping mechanism. Maybe there was something he was stronger than Gladio about.

 

“Does he always look like that at dinner?” Prompto asked.

 

Iris looked over, gaze following his to where her brother sat. She watched Gladio for a moment before turning her attention back to the line in front of her. “Yes,” she said, sighing.

 

Prompto kept watching his friend, as one of his crew commented something to him. Gladio’s expression shifted, just enough that he was looking at the man who’d spoken, but when the conversation turned away from him, he withdrew into that far-off look.

 

“I’ll think about it,” Prompto said.

 

“Y-you will?” Iris asked.

 

“I’m not saying I’m going to help you make some master plan about all of it, but… I’ll think about it.”

 

“Oh, Prompto! Thank you!” Iris turned and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug.

 

The spectacle – her shout and the display of affection – drew the attention of just about everyone in the cafeteria.

 

Even the amber-eyed gaze of her big brother.

 

It had been years since Prompto was truly scared of Gladio. The big guy was protective and fierce, but he wasn’t one to have much of a temper, and once he’d realized that Prompto was really Noctis’s friend, there had been no bad blood between them. Gladio helped Prompto to train, and while he wasn’t the gentlest of teachers, he was fair.

 

The look Gladio was giving him across the room now wasn’t… hostile.

 

It wasn’t friendly, either.

 

“I-Iris,” Prompto said, glancing around them at the whistles and envious looks he was getting.

 

“What’s wrong, Prompto?” Iris asked, looking up at him with a mischievous grin. “Don’t you like being close to me?”

 

“That’s not it at all,” Prompto said, gently loosening her arms from around him. He wasn’t the blushing virgin he’d been on that road trip years ago, thankfully. He leaned down, just enough so that he could say softly to her, “But we are in front of a lot of people.”

 

Iris blinked, and then looked around. It was almost like she hadn’t realized they had an audience.

 

It was adorable.

 

She snatched her arms away and turned around to face the line ahead of them.

 

During the little spectacle a gap had formed between them and the people in front of them.

 

Iris coughed gently and hurried forward.

 

Prompto shook his head and stepped forward to join her, tucking his hands in to his pockets. If helping Gladio meant spending more time around Iris, then this was going to end up being harder than he thought it would. But what was it that Iggy was fond of saying?

 

_Nothing is worth doing unless it takes effort._

 

And weren’t friends always worth the effort?


	3. Chapter 3

Sleeping in the Citadel was strange after so much time sleeping outside and in rickety out buildings during the Darkness, but the daily exertion and being in a room full of other sleeping bodies was a combination that meant that most nights Vis fell asleep almost as soon as she was sideways with a pillow underneath her head. Sometimes, if they’d worked hard enough she passed out without even getting properly under the covers. When she forgot it, someone covered her with a blanket. She never missed a shift because here was an unspoken rule among the bunkmates that they all woke one another for the next meal. Running with the scouting team was hard work, and so far they hadn’t liberated any technology to make it any easier. Yet, they all kept telling each other.

 

With so many years of exercise and stress, it barely took a month for Vis’s body to get used to scouting the ruins of the Crown City, and what had been a tense sort of perpetual readiness developed over those last few years of darkness relaxed into routine. As the routine became familiar it became less grueling, her sleep became less peaceful.

 

Her dreams returned.

 

Barely her second month staying in the Citadel and she was back to the way she’d been shortly after escaping the Fall of Insomnia, ten years ago – few nights of rest between fitful nights kept up by tension or trapped in restless sleep by nightmares.

 

It was hard to tell what would set her off. Sometimes it was her full stomach and all the cramps that went along with it after so long on short rations, others it was the actual rest she was getting for the first time in so long in a real bed, or it could be the summer heat she was out working in every day. For whatever reason it was on that particular night with her eyes closed and the blanket pulled up around her, Vis fell in to a replay of that awful night when Insomnia burned.

 

Her dreams were filled with close air, heat and smoke, and the noxious scent of daemons far too close for comfort. It was the night of her escape, and she was running alone through the streets while the Crown City shook with the battle taking place within it.

 

And then, abruptly, she wasn’t in Insomnia anymore. It was no longer that scorching night with the city burning around her.

 

That night had become another one entirely.

 

The close, warm feeling changed. It became _too_ close. This was different, not flames but steam, and she could feel the sting of her fall. This was Lestallum… the sewers.

 

A low noise drew her attention. Whatever it really was, in her dream it translated itself to a familiar, rasping gurgle.

 

Even though she _knew_ she was horizontal and sleeping in one of the bunk beds, in her dream she was pressed against a damp corner, praying to the Astrals that the daemon didn’t come around a bend in the tunnel and catch sight or scent of her.

 

The noise got louder, and Vis panicked, tensing for a fight—

 

—only to wake, wide-eyed and in a cold sweat with everyone still asleep around her.

 

Rather than waking any of the tired bodies up with the sobs she could feel ready to tear themselves from her throat, she rose and went to the bathroom.

 

The lights were already on as she entered, and as they were motion activated, she should have known someone else was already in there. But she was too distracted to notice. Her throat was too dry, thoughts too wild. And the cramping in her stomach had turned into a vicious roiling that sent her part the row of sinks in the communal part of the wash room and straight for the women’s stalls through the door on the far wall.

 

Thankfully she made it to the toilets and sank to her knees before losing the remains of her dinner.

 

She reached up and flushed the mess away. She sat up away from the bowl, taking a deep breath to try and calm the racing of her heartbeat. It didn’t work, and what was worse she’d forgotten to braid her hair before bed so the thick curls were plastered to her forehead and neck with sweat. She used both hands to pull it away, twisting it up so that the cool air in the bathroom could dry some of the sweat when a low voice broke through the rushing sound of her pulse in her ears.

 

“Either someone introduced you to the firewater that Favus has been brewing in his spare time or you’re having a worse night than I am.”

 

Turning, Vis looked up at the speaker.

 

And up.

 

And up.

 

Even nightmare-rattled she knew the man that stood before her on sight. She’d know him even if he hadn’t been kind enough to bring her dinner as a thank you for giving up her terminal time a month ago. Anyone would recognize him. Given the towering height and the thick, solid mass of him, Gladiolus Amicita was difficult to mistake.

 

He was leaned against the doorway to the women’s stall room, filling the opening with strong arms folded across his broad chest. Even to her sleep-fuzzy eyes he looked in as good of shape as he had the last time their paths had crossed. “For your sake, I hope it was the hooch.”

 

 “I’ve not even met Favus,” Vis replied, voice feeling scratchy.

 

“You don’t have to meet him to get the booze,” Gladiolus replied. His eyes were a bit dark, but his voice was neutral enough. He was dressed differently from his work clothes in a dark tank top and a pair of sweatpants. “It’s pretty much share and share alike right now. If it’s here it’s for everyone. We’re all working, after all.”

 

“Good to know.”

 

Silence descended between them. Vis wiped her face with the back of her hand, trying to look slightly less a mess than she knew she was. Trying not to look like she’d just been frightened from her bed by a nightmare like a child.

 

“It wasn’t the hooch, was it?” Gladiolus asked in a gentle voice.

 

Vis shook her head, sitting back on her shins. She leaning back against the cool stone of the stall, letting her head’s position against it keep her hair up. Her hands settled at her sides on the tile floor, and she was pretty sure she was in the dirtiest indoor place she could be, but the cold against her skin was worth it. She’d just have to scrub good and clean before she ate breakfast.

 

“Well, misery loves company, I guess,” Gladiolus said. He stood up from his lean and came over to the stall she was in.

 

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

 

“Get cleaned up a little, you’ll feel better,” he suggested, leaning down, offering her a hand up. That dark look in his eyes was there, but more than brooding he seemed sympathetic.

 

“A-all right,” she replied, taking his hand and letting him pull her up to her feet.

 

From the ease of his assistance, it was like she weighed next to nothing. Given the size of him, she might as well have been. He didn’t comment on it, though, he just released her hand and motioned her over to the bank of sinks that faced the long mirror.

 

“I’m not sure if just washing my face is going to help,” Vis replied, heading over to the row of sinks. It was nothing she had thought to do in the weeks she’d been dealing with these on and off nightmares. The creature comforts of the Citadel weren’t a luxury she’d had when dealing with the nightmares before returning to the city, so she’d overlooked them.

 

She looked up in to the mirror to find that her face was flushed so much that there were red spots from her cheeks back to her ears. Maybe, just maybe, he was right.

 

Reaching forward, she turned on the water, slowly. The end of the dream was still fresh in her mind, that gurgling noise. The sound of water sent her back to the sewer. Her heart hammered in her chest and it was hard to breathe. She closed her eyes tightly against it.

 

“It’s just water,” his deep voice broke through the sound.

 

Vis opened her eyes at that, looking up to find his reflection in the mirror. He was back leaned against the wall, far enough away that she couldn’t feel his presence. She looked again at the sink, expecting to see the dark, oily water of the sewer.

 

But it wasn’t.

 

The clear water running in to the sink was just that. Just water.

 

She pulled the stopper and let the water fill the sink a little before shutting off the tap. She scooped some in to her hands, and it felt clean. Heartened by that, she splashed it on to her face. The cool water felt good as good on her skin as the tile had.

 

He was right.

 

She looked up at him again, and their eyes met in the mirror. “I… it’s been a long time since I was last in the City and… the last few weeks haven’t really…”

 

“You don’t need an excuse for me,” Gladiolus said, rolling his neck. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s been in a city. It takes some adjusting.”

 

He was right, of course, but it wasn’t how she meant it.

 

And he’d offered to leave it. She could keep all of it to herself, dry her face off, and head back to the bunk room.

 

But then she thought of the gurgling noise she’d heard in her dream, of the floor opening up and the long, dangerous free-fall in to the wet darkness. A sob clawed at the back of her throat, one that she choked back.

 

“That’s not exactly true,” Vis said, careful to keep her voice steady. The talking helped. She… found that she wanted to. “Or… I mean… That’s not what I _mean_. I was in Lestallum, so it’s not been so long since I was in a city. It’s…”

 

Gladiolus’s attention focused on her. She could see his amber eyes watching her in the mirror. She shifted her gaze to look at herself, and was surprised at what she saw. It had been about a million years since she’d really bothered to look at herself in a mirror. Her skin was tan, far darker than the normal honey-color she was naturally, and there were sun streaks in her dark brown hair. Her flushed cheeks looked too thin, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

 

She looked half-crazy, and here she was unloading on _the King’s Shield_ of all people.

 

“Sorry. My baggage isn’t anything you need to worry about.”

 

“Hey.”

 

Vis looked up at him, surprised to find a serious look on his face in the mirror.

 

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t willing to listen. Alright?”

 

She nodded.

 

“So, if it’s not _just_ being in a city, what is it?”

 

“It’s being in _Insomnia_ ,” Vis replied. “The last time I was here it was all fire and daemons and blood.”

 

“There are no more daemons,” Gladiolus replied.

 

“I know that,” Vis said. “Academically, I know it. I mean I wasn’t even scared of them, by the end of the darkness… just…” she sighed, leaning forward. “I can’t not _see_ them, either. Which is strange, because I know they’re in my head. But this is where it all started. Sometimes it’s like a… trigger or something.”

 

He was quiet a moment, and in that silent space she felt doubt creep in.

 

She was bothering him with it, she should keep it to herself. No one else was fleeing to bathrooms in the middle of the night, no one else was over-sharing with relative strangers. “Look, I’m sorry for-”

 

“Maybe we can fix that.”

 

Vis looked up, and he came forward, holding out his hand again.

 

“Come with me.”

 

“What? I-”

 

“It can’t hurt,” he said, “and I promise, you’ll be safe with me.”

 

Vis hedged, not wanting to waste his time with something she was pretty sure wouldn’t help anyway.

 

Then a belligerent bit of logic kicked in and asked what else he could have to do in the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping.

 

Not much, she reasoned.

 

And he had been the one to say _misery loves company_. Maybe this was as much for his benefit as for hers.

 

As the alternative was going back to the bunk in the east dormitory and trying to get more sleep – which she could already tell wouldn’t do much good – she reached out and took his hand.

 

Gladiolus smiled, just a little, and folded her hand in his, turning to lead her from the locker room. His hand was big, and warm, but his grip was gentle. He turned them away from the dormitories, headed in to a closer hallway, and then they were taking an elevator that felt like it was going up a hundred stories all at once.

 

“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” he asked, casually.

 

“I… I don’t know,” she admitted. It wasn’t so much the heights themselves but the _falling off of them_ that bothered her. “Why?”

 

He just smiled, a little piece of a smile, and when the doors opened he lead her out. They went down another hall and up a short flight of stairs until he pushed open a door out on to the roof. The sky overhead was no longer the dark of night, but a morning twilight that was beginning to look like dawn.

 

Vis blinked as they came out, surprised by the warmth of the breeze that cut across the city from this height. Gladiolus led her over toward the edge of the building, and released her hand.

 

Spread out before them in the wan light of dawn was the whole of Insomnia. From this height the carnage to the city was obvious – craters and dark sections that were likely burn marks, collapsed building and rubble. There were fallen figures that looked like those that had been part of the Old Wall, and Vis shivered, taking a half-step back, only to bump in to Gladiolus’s arm.

 

“They’d be active, if they were still here,” he said softly.

 

“What?” she asked, looking up at him.

 

“The daemons,” he replied, nodding to the area spread out below them. “You were a Hunter, weren’t you?”

 

“Not originally,” she admitted.

 

“Well. When there was still light, _this_ was when they were most visible,” He lifted his arm past her, pointing out toward the brightening horizon as he spoke, “Almost like they were trying to cross over in to daylight.”

 

Vis looked again, trying to pick out the moving shapes that she thought should be there. The city was still. Before the fall it wouldn’t have been, she knew. But now there were no cars moving on the streets, no lights in the windows, nothing but the slow brightening of the sky caused any change.

 

Gladiolus was a warm, solid mass standing behind her.

 

She felt the panic of her dream recede.

 

 “Why were you having a bad night?” she thought to ask.

 

He was quiet a moment, and then he said, “I’m not, anymore.”

 

Looking up at him again, Vis was surprised to find he was looking out at the city, just as she had been. The dark look in his eyes was gone as the morning light brightened his face.

 

After a moment, he looked down at her, offered that same little piece of a smile and said, “We’d better get you down to breakfast before Prompto gets the rest of the team up and out. He’ll throw a fit if you’re late.”

 

“He can deal with the frustration for once, if I am,” she said but didn’t resist when he took her hand again, leading the way back.

 

“You’ve obviously never had the mop-head throw a fit on you,” Gladiolus replied. “He’s a terror.”

 

“You know, everybody says that,” Vis replied, letting herself drift along after him, “but I’ve never had that much trouble with him.”

 

“That’s because you’re special. You sure you’re not a saint?”

 

“Not remotely,” Vis replied.

 

Once they were safely tucked in the elevator, she said, “Thank you, Gladiolus.”

 

His smile grew just a little. “You’re welcome,” he replied. “But uh… it’s Gladio. Has been for ages.”

 

She nodded.

 

“What’s your name again?” he asked.

 

“Vis,” she replied.

 

“Nice to meet you, Vis.”

 

He squeezed her hand at that, offering her the little piece of a smile, and then let go as the elevator reached the central floor.

 


	4. Interlude: An Observing Eye

Prompto was stretching for start of his shift while he ate, preferring to multi-task rather than getting up earlier to stretch and _then_ eat breakfast or vice-versa. He nearly dropped his bagel entirely when he saw Gladio come in with Vis. Even though the two of them split off from each other as soon as they reached the cafeteria, Prompto was surprised. Aside from he and Ignis, Gladio wasn’t particularly familiar with anyone other than his sister.

 

Not that Prompto blamed Gladio, the big guy had always been friendly with others, but after all that had happened- after all they had _lost_ , it was hard to connect with others. That was something even Prompto was struggling with. Gladio had taken it as a personal failing when they lost Noct. They all had, of course, their one job had been to protect him, but…

 

Ignis seemed to have made his peace with what happened, or was at least managing not to break down about it.

 

Prompto knew he wasn’t doing so well on his own, but sometimes Gladio seemed like the calf of an iceberg, drifting off.

 

Rather than ask about it directly, as Gladio had _a lot_ in common with Noctis when it came to keeping things close to the chest, Prompto just smiled and welcomed Vis to breakfast. Something about his thoughts must have shown on his face, because his partner gave him a funny look as she sat down with her tray.

 

“What?” she asked, picking up her coffee and making a face as she drank it like a shot. “I cleaned up.”

 

“I didn’t say you didn’t,” Prompto replied.

 

“And I updated the map.”

 

“It’s nothing, ok?” Prompto said. He pulled his copy of the map they’d marked up yesterday out of his thigh pocket. He’d had a meeting with Ignis that morning about what supplies were most needed, so he already knew where he’d be sending the other teams. “Help me divvy up the supply runs for the day,” he said, pushing the map at her.

 

Vis nodded, taking it from him.

 

Prompto watched her face as he ate more of his breakfast, considering. Vis was an attractive woman. She was competent and honest, had a strong grip and a pretty smile, and her thick, curly hair had taken an attractive lightening with all the outdoor activity they’d been at the last six weeks. He’d been considering flirting with her for a while – though he hadn’t made it through his own personal crisis about flirting with subordinates, especially now that he was some kind of official as far as the working government was concerned and he had negative-zero desire to abuse his power – but still had thought better of it.

 

If Gladio was interested, Prompto would happily end his inner crisis about whether he was allowed to flirt with her once and for all.

 

“I think this will work best,” Vis said, sliding a small notepad over to him. “But you should run it by the Works people first to make sure they don’t have any clearing to do in sector F-5 before you give it out.”

 

“Have I told you lately that you’re the best?” Prompto asked, scooping his map and her notepad up. “I’ll go check this with the big guy before everyone else comes down for breakfast.”

 

Vis nodded, tucking in to her meal.

 

She didn’t _seem_ concerned about Gladio, and Prompto wondered just what had them coming down to breakfast together. He was used to Gladio coming down early – had talked with him about how hard it was to sleep sometimes – but Vis usually didn’t come in until Ilda or Pyotra.

 

He headed over to where Gladio was sitting by himself. Gladio headed the Works Department that did the heavy lifting of the street cleaning, while Prompto was currently at the helm of the Scouting Department – a temporary name, everyone agreed – that was more set up on the cartography and logistics. Ignis was manning the Strategic Planning Department – another ugly mouthful if you asked Prompto – which tied the other two together with the help of the Personnel Department that the Marshal was heading up.

 

“Yo, mop head,” Gladio said around a bite of his breakfast, “what’s up?”

 

“Today’s supply runs,” Prompto replied, flopping the map down. He smiled at the somewhat cheerful greeting, pleased to see Gladio was in decent spirits for once. “Iggy gave me what we’re running low on and I wanted to check that it wouldn’t overlap with anything your guys are clearing out.”

 

Gladio checked the map, holding a hand out for the list that Prompto was still holding.

 

Prompto handed it over and glanced back to see if anyone else had come down from his crew. Kietra and Quald had joined Vis at the table, already squabbling about which of them would be running supplies and which would be running point.

 

“Looks clear to me,” Gladio said, holding the map and the pad up. “Though you might think about doing some of your own logistics instead of leaving it to your partner all the time.”

 

“What?” Prompto asked, looking back at his friend.

 

“How much of your work does Vis do?”

 

“S-some,” Prompto admitted.

 

“Uh huh,” Gladio said with a chuckle.

 

“Was she complaining about me to you?” Prompto asked, surprised.

 

“Her? Nah,” Gladio said, scooping up another bite of his breakfast. “Though you may want to get back to your crew before they take over entirely.”

 

Prompto ignored the subtle jab about how he was running his very small division, standing by the results he got rather than the lack of regimentation in his work process. He was tempted to ask Gladio what the two of them _had_ talked about last night, but he wasn’t sure whether or not intruding on whatever it was would evaporate Gladio’s seeming good mood.

 

“You’re probably better off not asking me whatever has you making that face,” Gladio said.

 

Snapped out of his thoughts, Prompto frowned, annoyed at how easily read his expression was. “Sure, I’ll let you off the hook this time.”

 

Normally that little exchange would cause a snort or a scowl, but Gladio just glanced up at him and then rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you at dinner,” Gladio said, rolling his big shoulders and turning his attention back to his plate.

 

Prompto nodded, turning to head back to his crew, more than curious about what the two of them had been talking about now than he had been before. Still, it wasn’t like any of them were going anywhere, there’d be time to figure it all out later. He headed back to the table where the scouts were all gathering to doll out the work assignments, sharing a fistbump with Ilda as she came over from the chow line.

 


	5. Her Accident, the Five Visits She Expected (And the One She Didn't)

Working with Prompto’s unit was challenging, to say the least. Vis had the right build for it – tall and lean. As her diet improved from the scraps of whatever she could find during the darkness to the steady two and a half doled out by the Citadel’s cafeteria, so did her body mass. What came back in healthy weight shifted to lean muscle. Which was a good thing for running with the scouts, but a little strange. She’d never been this fit when she worked in an office, but a lot of things had changed in the twelve years since she’d last lived in the city.

 

Despite her nightmares, she felt she was settling in remarkably well to life after the Darkness.

 

By August they’d received an influx of people back in to the Crown City and it had expanded the Scouting Department greatly. The ten scouts turned in to a hundred, and Vis didn’t have to chase Prompto around to get him to do paperwork anymore because he took himself off the roster of runners swelled. Vis approved of the change, glad that there was a little more structure to the scouts.

 

Since she’d lost her partner, Vis switched over to group runs. Now she normally ran with the unit that went for vistas. They would climb to a high point and make approximations of what was coming up ahead, and then scouting teams of twos and threes would go and verify the exact locations with GPS. The vista scouters were the first groups assigned tablets, and Pyotra became the official liaison to the central division. Vis was surprised, at first, by Pyotra’s decision, but only until she found out that her Kingsglaive friend was expecting a baby. Ilda and Vis both stayed out with the others mapping the wreckage to the street layout from before the Fall.

 

Four months after her return to Insomnia, four months after she’d started running with the scouting unit she had her first accident.

 

Her accident might have been avoidable, but it was a debate that other people would have without her. The fire escape that her team had been mounting looked steady enough, but when the third member of her team hauled himself up on to it, the wall it was mounted to cracked and the entire wall came crashing down.

 

Thankfully the wall had come off in one piece – reinforced from within by a steel frame – and crashed in to the neighboring building. All three of her team survived with only minor injuries. The other two – a former Glaive named Nicola and a woman named Sarah who’d been barely a recruit to the Crownsguard before the Fall – were on a lower section of the fire escape and suffered bruised ribs as they’d hit the railing.

 

Vis had been the first to climb so she was higher up. She cracked her arm on the metal as she fell off. She managed to grab the railing with her good arm, slowing her descent, but she broke her cracked arm when she lost her grip and fell to the concrete of the alley below. Thankfully the fall _also_ knocked her unconscious, so the pain of her dislocated shoulder and the break was lost to darkness.

 

Because she was so tall, and dense with muscle neither of them could carry her easily out. In the end, Sarah stayed with her while Nicola went to get help.

 

It took the rest of that day for the retrieval. Vis was transported back to the safety of the Citadel’s newly stocked infirmary, and didn’t wake for a full day afterward. Her sleep was a feverish, fitful.

 

She woke up _screaming_ in the infirmary at four-oh-two the next afternoon.

 

Strong hands pushed her back down to her bed by the shoulders. Vis was too panicked to recognize anything around her other than the white walls and hanging curtains.

 

“You’re ok, Vis,” a familiar voice said from nearby. It was close enough that it had to be whoever was holding her down. “You’re safe, I promise, just… try not to move.”

 

Vis reached up, searching for whoever it was that was speaking, and a warm hand took hers. When her eyes could focus again and she opened them, she found it was Prompto.

 

“There you are,” he said with a soft sigh.

 

“What-?” she asked, bewildered at her surroundings.

 

“You took a fall,” Prompto explained. “You’re injured, your shoulder and your ribs and your left arm, but you’re fine. We’ve got you.”

 

“We?” Vis asked, turning to look around.

 

A nurse was on the other side of the bed, and as Vis looked over, the young man stepped forward and laid a cool cloth on her head. “You’re in the infirmary,” the young man explained.

 

“How did I-?”

 

“We carried you in from sector F-13,” Prompto explained.

 

“I think now that she’s awake it should be fine to leave her in our care, sir,” the nurse said.

 

“I’m not ready to leave,” Prompto said, a more serious expression on his face than she’d ever seen before.

 

She shifted on the bed and the pain spiked so hard that she cried out from it. The room around her swam in her vision. She gripped Prompto’s hand hard, and he put a hand on her good shoulder gently in response.

 

The nurse settled a cold cloth on her sweaty forehead and turned back to some sort of a table or a counter. He turned back around with a pill and a glass of water. “This will help with the pain,” the nurse said, “do you think you can swallow it?”

 

“If it will make this stop, I’ll chew glass,” Vis snapped.

 

“Take that as a yes,” Prompto said when the nurse hesitated.

 

He hooked a careful arm under her good shoulder, helping her sit upright enough to take the pill. Just that little movement was enough to send a fresh wave of agony ripping through her, and Vis thought she might actually break his hand she was gripping it so hard. But she swallowed the pill and the water, and he lowered her back to the bed.

 

Whatever it was wasn’t the kind of magic that could heal away the injuries, but it was strong enough that she couldn’t even _feel_ her body to find any pain by the time Prompto had eased his arm out from under her shoulders.

 

“She’ll get to sleep now, Sir,” the nurse said to Prompto. “You can leave her with us.”

 

“I’m staying,” Prompto replied, giving her good hand a gentle squeeze. “At least until she gets to sleep. It’s awful to be alone in times like this.”

 

Vis smiled at him for that, tightening her fingers around his even though her eyes felt like crossing.

 

“If you’re that insistent about it,” the nurse said. Then he turned and left the little room with a shake of his head.

 

“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience, there.”

 

“I am,” Prompto replied. “Look, your eyes are crossing and you’ve just been dosed with pain meds. Get some sleep.”

 

Vis closed her eyes, but had to press her lips together against the rush of nausea that threatened. She opened them again. “Not that easy.”

 

“Does it still hurt?”

 

“Can’t feel the pain, just… can’t quite sleep yet.”

 

“Which is funny, considering you didn’t wake up the entire time we were carrying you back.”

 

“Who’s we?”

 

“Me and the rescue brigade,” Prompto replied. He shifted in his seat, settling against the edge of the bed without releasing her hand. “It took a while to get to you, partly ‘cuz Gladio insisted we take a couple of the structural guys with us.”

 

“Considering a wall collapsed,” Vis replied. She felt her eyelids growing heavy. She kept her grip on Prompto’s hand, concerned that when she closed her eyes she’d get that sick feeling in her stomach again. “That is sort of his department.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Prompto said. “He doesn’t usually handle it personally.”

 

“What?” her eyes opened fully at that, and she cast a confused look up at Prompto.

 

“The big guy doesn’t have time to go on every rescue mission,” Prompto clarified. “We were in the middle of a meeting when the news came in that a scout was down. He followed me when I went down to oversee the recovery, and… well, it’s not easy to argue with him when he’s decided he’s going to lend a hand.”

 

That was a surprise, honestly. Vis turned her gaze up to the ceiling, picking out the imperfections in it. There were rough spots where cracks had been patched without being smoothed over, a sign of how quickly the room had been refinished. “I guess it would be.”

 

“That’s Gladio for you, the man’s a force of nature,” Prompto said with a soft chuckle. He tipped his head. “You’re surprised he came to get you, aren’t you?”

 

“A little,” Vis admitted. “You I expected,” she said. “We’re coworkers and friends.”

 

Prompto smiled, stroking her hand with his thumb. “Of course we are.”

 

“It’s not quite the same with Gladio.”

 

“Then chalk that up to the big guy’s goodwill,” Prompto said.

 

“He’s a nice person,” Vis said, feeling her eyes drift closed again.

 

“He is,” Prompto agreed.

 

The room seemed to darken around her. It felt like the drugs were weighing her down, and she was drifting comfortably away from the light. As her eyes fell shut, she was anchored by the comforting warmth of Prompto’s hand clasped in hers, and the thought of Gladio’s amber eyes hiding under a fall of his dark hair.

 

“He should smile more,” she murmured.

 

She fell asleep too hard to hear Prompto’s agreement.

  

*

 

When Vis woke two days after her accident from her drugged sleep, her left arm was mostly immobilized from the shoulder to the wrist. The contraption she was strapped in to had a joint at the elbow, at least, but she couldn’t do much more than flex the fingers of her right hand. Even that caused a jolt of pain through her, so she was quietly given a careful dose by the nurse, who informed her that he’d kicked Prompto out when the unit liaisons had come to ask him about the scouting department’s operations schedule. Vis thanked the nurse for the update and drifted back off. She’d spoken truly when she called him a friend. In the months of working with him, Prompto had become like a kid brother of sorts. He’d been managing

 

The Marshal came to see her on the second day. It was reassuring to have him check in instead of Prompto, who was closer to a kid brother after so many months of working with him. The Marshal inspected the report of her injury, estimated how long it would take for her to recover given what supplies they had salvaged from the first of the clinics that had been unearthed, and deemed it would be at least a month before she’d be back to work on regular hours.

 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Vis replied, hunching in on herself.

 

“I told you in Lestallum that you don’t have to call me sir,” the Marshal said, “and you don’t have to apologize. Accidents happen. I wish we had enough people that I could tell you to take off until you were well, but with the influx of people returning we need all the experienced help we can get.”

 

Vis wanted to say that she wasn’t much help at the moment, but one look at the Marshal and she knew he could read the words out of her head. His frown confirmed that he didn’t want to hear them.

 

“Prompto speaks highly of your work,” the Marshal said, “but Monica says you weren’t originally a Hunter?”

 

That got a little laugh out of her. “No, si-”

 

He cut her off with a sharp look.

 

“No,” she corrected herself. “I was an office worker… before.”

 

“What would you say to a transfer?” the Marshal asked. “Ignis could use someone capable at organizing. I know the two of you worked together during the Darkness. The others that have been assigned are having trouble keeping up with him.”

 

Vis hedged at that. She’d _liked_ being on the scouting team because it felt like she was getting closer to Austellus, closer to _home_ with every block they mapped out. Her accident had been ten miles still from her old neighborhood, but she’d been on her way there. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that even if she transferred to another division, the scouts would still reach Austellus, but she wouldn’t be the first there. She wouldn’t get to see it with her own eyes.

 

“I’m sure Ignis can explain it better than I can, though,” the Marshal said, interrupting her thoughts. “Why don’t I have him come talk to you about it?”

 

But she knew from experience, from the last ditch fortifications in Lestallum, that not everything was solved by getting somewhere first. It was disappointing, but it wasn’t nearly as nerve wrecking as coming to the conclusion that she’d have to learn to be a hunter to survive outside of Insomnia.

 

“If it’ll help, I’d be happy to-”

 

“It’s just information,” the Marshal said, interrupting her again. Vis looked at him, and saw that he looked to be a very tired man. They were all tired, these days. He sighed. “Look, I can’t force you to change work groups, but before you make your decision, at least talk to him.”

 

“Ok, Marshal,” she said.

 

“Thank you.”

 

And then he left, without lengthy salutations or any concerned looks. It was just his way, and that constancy was a comfort.

 

*

 

Vis expected Ignis to be her next visitor, but it was Ilda and Pyotra. She hadn’t seen her friends in a few weeks before the accident, partly because Pyotra had been taken off scouting due to pregnancy, and Ilda had been assigned as the liaison with the Central Division.

 

“Astrals, you look worse than I thought!” Pyotra said as she came over to the left-hand side of the bed. “I mean I was always green in warp training, but you actually look gray.”

 

“That’s not the nicest thing to say, Pyo,” Ilda chided, coming around to the right-hand side. She bent and gave Vis a careful, one-armed hug before setting a little wrap of flowers in her lap.

 

“It’s probably the lack of sleep,” Vis admitted.

 

Without more of a dose of medication than she was comfortable with, Vis was finding it impossible to get to sleep. The pain was a constant, dull ache that made her want to close her eyes, but every time she did she had a flash of claws and the sickening scent of a daemon’s breath. The visceral memories jolted her back to wakefulness roughly, so she was only rally managing to sleep ten or fifteen minutes at a time for most of the day until she crashed heavily, usually well after all the lights had been dimmed to indicate it was night time.

 

“I could never sleep in hospitals either,” Pyotra commiserated. She lowered herself in to the chair beside the bed, shaking her head. “Too sterile.”

 

“Anything’s better than the bunk rooms,” Ilda said.

 

“We made sure to get your things pulled from your usual locker,” Pyotra said. “There’s someone borrowing your bunk for now.”

 

“If we’d just get to Austellus,” Vis grumbled, “I wouldn’t need the damn bunk room.”

 

“You could always take some alternate housing,” Ilda offered, settling in the other chair.

 

“Have they finished up the structural review of the Citadel yet?” Vis asked.

 

“They’re well underway on it,” Ilda replied. “I mean that was their first order of business when they returned. Shoring up the damage here, setting things in to motion to house people. They left the insides alone, but the building isn’t going to fall on our heads.”

 

“Thank you for that visual,” Vis replied. “I hadn’t ever considered the Citadel crashing down on me before.”

 

“What she means,” Pyotra butted in, “is that we’re already looking in to alternate housing.”

 

“Which makes sense for you and Bojden,” Vis said. “You’re having a baby.”

 

“That’s not the only reason,” Pyotra said.

 

“It’d be nice not to be sleeping in a room full of people,” Ilda said in the same wistful tone Pyotra had taken about what to call Ignis’s relationship with Zoriedd. “I’ve got my name on the list for anything that opens up.”

 

“It’d be too much like Escarta,” Vis said. “If I’m going to leave the bunk rooms, I’d rather move somewhere I’ll be able to relax.”

 

“Well you’re going to have to do something about it sooner or later. It sounds like Central Division is looking to make the dorms in to temporary accommodation for newcomers acclimating to the return to the city.”

 

Vis frowned. “Where’d you overhear that?”

 

“From Iris, actually,” Ilda replied.

 

“Iris is working with Central Division?”

 

“She’s coordinating between the Marshal’s people and Central,” Pyotra said. “Central’s been in a bit of a disarray since the influx of citizens returning. Zorya and Ignis are good together, but they shouldn’t share an office.”

 

“Zorya- Zoriedd? Firebrand?”

 

“You knew her in Lestallum, right?” Ilda asked.

 

“Everyone knew everyone in Lestallum,” Vis replied.

 

“I meant you ran missions with her,” Ilda said.

 

“Well yes, but that was a long time ago. I liked her, but it was before she and Ignis became… an item?”

 

Pyotra laughed. “Zorya’s easy to like. She’s always been that way. Though I’m not sure ‘an item’ is how I would describe her and Ignis.”

 

“Oh?” Vis asked. “How would you?”

 

Pyotra gave a wistful sigh.

 

Ilda and Vis both laughed at that. Vis doubled over in pain after, holding her midsection. “Don’t make me laugh, don’t,” she said, still snickering.

 

“I didn’t do anything in particular,” Pyotra said with false innocence.

 

Ilda rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

 

“I just meant that Ignis is far too serious for being called Zorya’s _boyfriend_. Or to call the two of them an _item_ seems… not enough, you know?”

 

Vis thought back to her exchanges with the Royal Adivser in Lestallum, and she couldn’t disagree. “What was it they used to say about them back in the City of Light?” she asked.

 

It sent Pyotra in to a broad grin. “Oh, he was Sir Husband, and she was Captain Wife, I think.”

 

“If the two of you want to reminisce about the good old days in Lestallum, I can come back another time,” Ilda said.

 

“All right, all right,” Vis replied, straightening up slowly.

 

“Anyway, Central Division is having a problem keeping staff, so most of the responsibilities are being handled by the liaisons to the other departments,” Ilda said. “Iris stepped up to work for the Marshal. She’s been asking how you’re doing.”

 

“She’s a sweet person,” Vis said. “I didn’t think she’d remember me.”

 

“You overlook how hard you worked in Lestallum,” Pyotra said.

 

“Iris was a teenager in Lestallum,” Vis replied. “And I don’t think anyone that age would have fond memories of the place, let alone go out of their way to remember the people who were working there.”

 

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Ilda said. “The Glaive and the Hunters are heroes, and no one from Lestallum will hear a word said against it. You have to expect that even Iris was impressed by you all, and considering how you two met…”

 

“I still think ten years is a long time to remember someone you haven’t talked to since,” Vis said. Her side hurt from the laughing, and sitting upright wasn’t helping. Her arm stayed around her middle, but she kept most of the pain from her expression. Or so she thought.

 

“I’m going to call the nurse for you,” Ilda said. “We’ve had you upright and talking too long. Prompto said you’d taken some damage to your ribs along with that nasty break in your arm.”

 

Pyotra frowned. “Of course, oh, Six, I didn’t mean to make you laugh so hard.”

 

Ilda headed out to find the nurse and Pyotra rose and got the little gift of flowers in to a vase with some water. Despite Vis’s protests to the contrary, both women left shortly after. With the drugs the nurse administered, it wasn’t long before Vis found herself falling back into fitful sleep.

 

*

 

After that it was Monica who came. She brought a little white box and a small bundle of flowers. She put the flowers in a vase off to the side of the infirmary bed and took a seat in the same chair the Marshal had sat in the afternoon before.

 

“Hey Monica,” Vis offered, smiling at her. Having visitors at least meant that she didn’t have to stare at the walls and pretend she was getting rest.

 

“I came to apologize,” Monica said, leaning forward and setting the box on Vis’s lap.

 

“Apologize?”

 

“When Cor asked about you, I should have known he wasn’t being conversational,” Monica said. “He’s low on sleep and he’s never very personable when he’s battling exhaustion.”

 

“That’s true enough for anyone,” Vis replied, turning the box a little. It was light.

 

“Cupcakes,” Monica explained. “They may not be very good, but once upon a time I was taking a cooking class, and the frosting was from my grandmother’s recipe.”

 

“Thank you,” Vis said. “I still don’t understand why you’re apologizing.”

 

“Because of his offer,” Monica said with a sigh. “If you’d wanted a transfer, you could have asked for one, and when he said you weren’t terribly receptive… well, his manner can be a little offensive at times.”

 

“Direct and rough around the edges, but I wouldn’t call him offensive,” Vis said. She carefully opened the lid of the box. There were three cupcakes with tan frosting inside. She scooped one out and held it out to Monica. “Share with me? Sweets are always better with company.”

 

Monica calmed down a little, taking the cupcake.

 

Vis took a second one out for herself. “I won’t even ask where you got the sugar for this,” she said, taking a bite, “or the cream.”

 

“There are a few perks to having direct access to the supplies,” Monic said softly.

 

They ate in silence for a few bites. Vis closed her eyes, enjoying the taste of the chocolate and cream. “When the supplies are easier to come by, you’ve got to give me the frosting recipe,” she said.

 

“I think that’s a fair trade.”

 

“You don’t have to do it just to apologize,” Vis said. “All he did was offer.”

 

“I’ve had him ‘offer’ a position to me before,” Monica replied. “Did it start with ‘I’m transferring you to’—?” she asked.

 

“No,” Vis replied. “I mean, I’m not Crownsguard, so he really _can’t_ just order me from place to place like he does you all. I think I’m… I’m technically a volunteer, aren’t I?”

 

That got a chuckle out of Monica, one that sounded honest. “I suppose you’re right,” she agreed.

 

“I just… I mean when you assigned me to the scouting team, I wasn’t sure, but I really found a way to take it to heart. So to get transferred now… it just seems…”

 

“It’s not a demotion,” Monica assured her, “it’s just a change.”

 

“But I don’t even know what work Ignis is doing. What if I’m not even helpful with it?”

 

“Trust me when I say you’ll be more than familiar,” Monica said. “You’re the one who said you were an office administrator before. At the very least, hear Ignis out about it yourself. If you don’t want to-” Monica chuckled, “it’s not like anyone can force you to change.”

 

To that Vis agreed.

 

She and Monica had a nice visit. The company, far better than that of the Marshal, was enough to relax her. Monica excused herself when Vis’s eyelids began to droop heavily.

 

Sleep had eluded her for so long that Vis barely realized she was out before the nurse was coming in to check on all the patients in the infirmary. That evening with dinner brought Nicola and Sarah, both of whom were pleased to see her awake and apologetic for not having noticed anything was wrong.

 

“Really,” Sarah said, “I should have noticed something, I’m _from_ that neighborhood and the redevelopment of the area was thrown up so fast it had to be faulty construction.”

 

 “I was the lead on the team,” Vis replied.

 

“If you think that’s going to make us feel better, you’ve got another thing coming,” Nicola said. He was propped up across the room from Vis’s bed, arms folded as he kept his shoulders against the door frame. “We were supposed to look out for each other.”

 

“You did,” Vis countered. “You could have bolted and left me in the alley. You went for help and kept an eye on me.”

 

Sarah made a face at that. “There wasn’t anything to protect you from,” she said. “There’s no more daemons to worry about.”

 

“And the rest of the building falling on top of me would have killed me just as dead,” Vis said. “If you’d left me alone, I might be a smear on the underside of some rubble.”

 

“Don’t talk about it that way,” Sarah said, blanching.

 

Across the room, Nicola snorted. “It’s true enough.”

 

“I’m grateful to both of you,” Vis said, cutting off his explanation before he could get started.

 

“A-are you going to leave the scouts?” Sarah asked, tentatively.

 

Vis looked over at her, surprised at how quiet her voice sounded as she asked. “I haven’t decided.”

 

Sarah glanced at Nicola, who shrugged. “What, I told you she’d probably change duty crews. It’s _practical_. She won’t be able to go out scouting for a while with those injuries, and people who have an itch for it don’t do so well with paperwork.”

 

“I _haven’t_ decided,” Vis repeated, looking at him sternly. “I’m going to hear Ignis out,” she admitted. “And I won’t know until then.”

 

It wasn’t what Sarah wanted to hear, obviously. Despite being likely in her thirties, the woman was almost childlike. Vis couldn’t remember whether she had met Sarah during the Darkness, but however Sarah had survived couldn’t have been on the front lines, which made her a bit of an oddity. Sarah had been a member of the Crownsguard, before. Vis wondered if the other Crownsguard had sheltered her from the fighting. There had been a closeness among the ranks of them that meant it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

 

Nicola was different. He’d left town five years before the Fall to get married, and had gone native so that when his marriage failed he’d taken up running a roadside diner. He knew too much about everything, and he made a point of being as jaded as he could be about things. His attitude made sense.

 

Her little crew gave her a few updates that she hadn’t known. The first of the reclaimed buildings were being opened as housing to the returning citizens. As there was no way to know who would be returning, the building crews had walled off closets in each of the structures and stowed personal effects in the event that the original owners returned and wanted the contents. Otherwise the returning citizens that were housed were given an unpainted, uncleaned unit with a temporary mattress and a small camping kit. Everyone was welcome to the communal building supplies as they became available, and from what Sarah had seen in her new residence there was no amount of tired that prevented the citizens from trading favors like sanding walls and painting.

 

That, at least, was a good thing. In the months since Vis had arrived and been assigned to the east dormitory, the lower floors of the Citadel had filled up with temporarily housed citizens as they were assigned to work crews. The beds in bunk rooms that had originally been assigned to crew members had been given numbers and folks traded them out depending on which shift they were on. What the crews had been working for months to be sure that there were places for the swelling population to return to so that there wouldn’t be trip hazards in the hallways as beds were lined up wherever they could be fit.

 

By the time her teammates left her, Vis was ready for another dose of the healing potion and tipped her head back in to the pillows behind her.

 

Sleep came easily with the medicine.

 

She wondered what would happen when she didn’t have it anymore.

 

*

 

The next morning the King’s Adviser came to visit.

 

Ignis was a tall man. There were scars on the left side of his face, and he wore dark glasses. The stories went that he had lost his sight before the darkness, in service to the king somehow, but no one really knew the truth. Or if they did know the truth, no one explained it. He came in to her little curtained off section of the infirmary and took the chair beside her bed.

 

Once he was settled he extended a hand in her direction. Vis took it, pleased to shake hands with him again. They had met in Lestallum before it fell, and he’d sought her help to begin searching for the Royal Tombs. They’d found several that the King hadn’t claimed before the fall, and she’d worked with him on making certain that the Kings of Old had been brought back to the City of Light.

 

 “It feels an age since Lestallum,” Ignis said.

 

 “It was a smallish kind of world, wasn’t it?”

 

“Indeed,” he replied. “My condolences on your accident. I understand how much of a strain that sort of an unexpected injury can be.”

 

If anyone could, it was Ignis, Vis figured. She nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see that. She had an awkward moment to herself over that oversight as she said, “Thank you.”

 

“I do not wish to waste your time,” Ignis said, “so please forgive me if I bypass some of the usual pleasantries.”

 

“I’m not sure I could take them, honestly,” Vis replied. “Not this week.”

 

“Fair enough,” Ignis replied. “Allow me to explain what you would be assisting with, and then you can ask any questions you have.”

 

“Sounds fair enough.”

 

“Insomnia is a wreck of what it once was. The buildings are crumbling in some places whilst others are nothing more than burnt out craters from the Fall. Where there are sound buildings there is no connection of the infrastructure to support habitation.”

 

“But I thought there was already a plan for converting the bunk rooms?”

 

“We’re in the process of converting apartments both in the Citadel and in the former Crown District back in to housing. We are able to work with the Crown District apartments because the area was designed as a fall back position in the event of a breech to the outer wall. The Crown District was fortified, and as such the Citadel itself is a small hub of infrastructure for the Crown District.”

 

“So that’s why everything starts here.”

 

“It is,” he agreed. “But the returning population is swelling beyond the capacity of our current housing availability. With the state of the City, we can’t just send people to their homes, and it’s unrealistic to expect them to stay in communal rooms indefinitely. As such we’ve shifted our efforts in the Citadel’s cleared areas to maintaining the spaces as apartments rather than making new bunk rooms, and we’ve begun making stable housing in the Crown District. The surveying teams have reached the outer points of public works that need to be reactivated, and we have the manpower to get things working again, but therein lies the difficulty. While we’ve met our first targeted goals, we now have to move from a two-front workforce to a multi-front approach.” Ignis tapped his gloved fingers against his knee as he explained. “The power grid must be brought back on line, similar to the approach in Lestallum. The other critical systems will follow. The waterworks is our next concern, with barely a short follow up of the sewage treatment centers. Without appropriate sanitation, we will have a health concern on our hands before the year is up.”

 

That had been a big concern in Lestallum, actually, one that was never addressed because the daemons took it over before it became an issue.

 

“As we split the two work forces in to smaller units, what is required is coordination. Gladio, Prompto, and I are the acting ministers in charge of the city in the absence of a formal governmental council, which gives us the authority to oversee the reconstruction efforts, but it also places upon us the burden of it. I am tasked with the coordination.”

 

His finger stilled, and he paused, as though waiting for a protest or comment about his fitness for the work. None came from Vis, who knew better than to second guess a man who was so dedicated to his duty that he’d sacrificed his sight for it. He’d been inconvenienced by it in Lestallum, but he’d quickly proven himself capable. Organizing a group of people seemed far less complicated for a man of his focus than fighting daemons.

 

“That is what I require assistance with. Monica mentioned you had worked in an office environment before, but this is less an office position and more an executive assistant-ship. What I require will be hands on, collaborative work. We’ll be putting together a system that interfaces with all of the crew leaders, making certain there’s communication between them until we can reactivate the communications grid. We’ll be checking up on the crews put to work in the activated sections of the city, working with the Marshal’s people to prevent as many injuries like yours as possible. Most of all, we’ll be putting the broken city back together, making it in to somewhere we can all be proud to call home once more.”

 

His speech was quite convincing. It was almost a campaign speech, the sort that she was familiar with after having to bring the Glaive and the Hunters together in Lestallum. She admired it, as the hard part of those was convincing the involved parties of the common ground. His speech was easier to make persuasive, though. Anyone who’d lived in Insomnia prior to the Fall lost heart coming across the burnt sections and the crumbled buildings.

 

And something in his words made it sound like working with him would put her far closer to Austellus than working with Prompto had. She might not get to see it before anyone else, but she’d be the reason she got to go home.

 

“Do you have any questions?”

 

“Are you sure I’ll be useful?” she asked.

 

“Quite,” Ignis said.

 

“Then I’ll be ready as soon as they let me out of this bed.”

 

Again, the two of them shook hands. Vis was pleased to be joining him, she found. Moreso when he added, “I’ve found a replacement for your team, so you needn’t worry about them.”

 

“That’s a little quick,” Vis said.

 

“Not entirely,” Ignis replied. “As you’re undoubtedly aware, I have been working in tandem with my… partner, who has been on the mend for several months. Unlike you she doesn’t excel in logistics, and there has been some… strife in the office. It was a mistake to try and convince her to attempt some quieter job, and I was only able to convince Prompto to authorize the transfer with a little quid pro quo.”

 

“You don’t know if I excel in logistics,” Vis reminded him.

 

“I can hazard a guess. It wasn’t just Monica who spoke of your talents, and your question was very telling. You didn’t ask if you could do the job, you asked if you’d be useful. What I have in mind is something anyone could learn to do if they have the will to learn.”

 

“Well then I guess the only question is when they’ll release me from enforced bedrest.”

 

“Not for another few days, at least,” Ignis said. “I understand you’ve done damage to your ribs as well as to your arm and shoulder. The doctor will want you clear of pain medication before you’re released to work. I only lament that we haven’t the proper medical supplies to banish your injuries.”

 

His fingers flexed on his thighs, and then folded placidly.

 

Vis barely noticed. Instead she sighed, softly, and sank back in to her pillows. “Guess I’ll just have to wait out my recovery a bit longer, then.”

 

“Unfortunately so,” Ignis said. “If you feel up to the task, I can have some paperwork brought by to give you a soft introduction to the work in progress.”

 

“If it’ll give me something to do that’s not staring at the walls all day, I’ll take anything you’ve got.”

 

*

 

Vis was still staring at the walls two days later, wishing Ignis had followed through on his threat/promise to send her paperwork, when a gentle clearing of throat drew her attention from the dull gray-white walls. She was surprised to find that she hadn’t heard the person come in – most people’s shoe falls or boot falls made squeaking noises on the floor of the infirmary – doubly so when she looked up to find that it was the Royal Shield who had drawn aside the hanging curtain to find her.

 

“Gladio,” Vis said by way of greeting. It was lame, she realized after she said his name, and obvious, but she was surprised. And she’d been injured. That had to count for something.

 

“Vis,” he replied, coming in to the curtained-off space and pulling the fabric closed behind him.

 

“I’d sort of run out of my rotation of visitors,” she admitted, “sorry if I’m a little rusty at greetings.”

 

He snorted at that, finding the chair beside her bed. He turned it around so that the back was to her bedside and put a leg over the seat so that he could settle in it. “You’re medicated, I’m surprised you recognized me.”

 

“First off, I’m not _that_ medicated,” Vis said, smoothing out the blankets over her with both hands, “and second, you’re really not that easy to confuse for someone else.”

 

“Flattery will get you paperwork,” Gladio said. He reached behind him, which was a bit confusing to her, but when he brought his hand back around he had a thick folder in it.

 

A thick folder that had been bent in half.

 

“Was this tucked in to the back of your pants?” she asked, because it bore asking.

 

“My hands were full when it was given to me,” he said.

 

“And whoever gave it to you folded it in half?”

 

“Oh, no. I did that. It was digging in to my back.”

 

“When your hands were free.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Vis lifted a brow at him.

 

Gladio chuckled, holding both hands up. “Alright, alright, you got me. I adjusted it once my hands were free. I didn’t want to scare anyone by being caught walking around with a file folder. Apparently it doesn’t suit my image.”

 

That got a laugh out of Vis, which was still the wrong thing to do. The pain that shot through her stole away her breath and she folded forward over her legs to try and make it stop.

 

There was a noise – a sort of scraping sound and a thud – and then there was warmth on her back.

 

“Try to relax,” he said in a gentle voice. “I know that sounds like shit advice, but… it’ll help.”

 

Vis nodded so that he knew she’d heard him, but it was hard.

 

“Breathe, Vis,” he said, voice soft and close to her ear. His hand rubbed her back gently. “You can do it.”

 

She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath, but once he pointed it out, she felt the burn in her chest. Whether it was the words or the warmth of his touch, she managed to take a shaky breath. The pain lessened, a little. She took another, slowly, and then another.

 

It didn’t get rid of the pain, exactly, but it helped.

 

“I’ll lean you back against the pillows,” he said. His free hand came out in front of her. “Take my hand, and if it hurts too much squeeze it and I’ll stop.”

 

She wasn’t sure that was worth trying, but so far he hadn’t been wrong about what to do. She got her right hand free of where she was folded over it and took his left where it was in front of her. His right hand moved across her back until he was gripping her by the shoulder, and he gave a soft count before guiding her up and back.

 

It was intensely painful for the moment she was moving, and she squeezed his hand viciously, but then it was over. She was leaned back against the pillows with the warm mass of his arm behind her shoulders.

 

“I know it hurt,” he said, still speaking softly, “but does it _still_ hurt?”

 

“Of course… it still hurts,” Vis gritted out.

 

“Worse than before?”

 

“No,” she admitted, grudgingly.

 

“Good,” he said. He slid his arm from beneath her, though he kept the grip of her hand in his. He leaned down and righted the chair and got back in to it. “I didn’t realize your ribs were that bad,” he said by way of apology.

 

“Apparently we’re not in stock with any of the potions that would just clean all this up,” Vis said, surprisingly glad he had kept hold of her right hand. Everyone had been avoiding her left arm because of the cast, and that was the side that it was easiest to get the chair situated on.

 

“The Alchemists are still looking for ingredients,” Glaido said. “I’ll talk to Ignis, once they’ve tested the new batch, the first one’s yours.”

 

“Might be healed on my own by then,” Vis said with a chuckle. “We’ve been looking for some of what they need for months. I’m starting to think the daemons fed on it. It used to grow in the squares.”

 

“Mm,” Gladio said. “You look…”

 

“Don’t,” she said. “I can feel the bruises and the scabbing. I asked them not to show me until I can do something about it.”

 

“I was going to say tired.”

 

Vis pressed her lips together. “Who sleeps well in a hospital?”

 

“Technically, this is an infirmary.”

 

“Monotone walls, squeaky floor, scent of cleaning product… close enough.”

 

“Good point,” Gladio allowed. “But that’s not the only reason for you.”

 

She looked up at him with raised brows.

 

“Shit, that sounded… I didn’t mean it like that. I was trying to ask if you’re still having problems with being in the city, or… is it something different?”

 

“A little of column a, a little of column b,” Vis replied.

 

“I can’t spring you to take you up to the roof this time, and it’s sunset, so it wouldn’t work anyway.”

 

“Sometimes it’s the thought that counts.” She tipped her head back, enjoying the warm feeling of his hand on hers.

 

Vis felt herself sinking deeper in to the pillows she was leaned back against. Her troubled sleep meant that she had been tired for what felt like the entire stay in the infirmary, and the warm weight of his hand was enough comfort to encourage her back towards sleep.

 

“Not much to do in here, is there?” Gladio asked.

 

“No,” Vis said, hearing her exhaustion in her tone. That was a new one. “I was waiting on the paperwork.”

 

“Sorry about that,” Gladio said. “The mop-head got it days ago, he just didn’t manage to get it down here to you. I’d be more annoyed if it wasn’t because he’s getting shit done, but… he could’ve sent it with someone.”

 

“He’s still figuring out how to delegate effectively,” Vis said, blinking to get her eyes open again. It would be rude to fall asleep on a guest.

 

“Hey, don’t,” Gladio said.

 

“What do you-” she started to ask, tipping her head in his direction.

 

His right hand came up and covered her eyes. “Don’t bother waking up just for me,” he said. “If you can sleep, sleep.”

 

“You say that like it’s easy.”

 

“Looked pretty easy just now,” Gladio replied.

 

“Special circumstances,” Vis replied. She started to let go of his left hand to get rid of the right one over his eyes, but his fingers tangled around hers.

 

“Sorry about that,” he said, taking his hand away from her face. “Force of habit, I’m used to having to deal with difficult patients.”

 

“I’m not your patient,” she said.

 

He shrugged. “What kind of special circumstances?”

 

“Company, I guess?” she asked, shrugging as well. “Usually the nurse gives me a pill and goes on with their work. Everyone clears out when I start to fall asleep.”

 

“Standard procedure, I’d imagine,” he replied. “Helps most patients get rest, making sure everything’s quiet and dim. Most patients don’t have your kind of memories to deal with.”

 

“I think everyone has those kinds of memories, these days.”

 

“That just means the protocol is wrong,” Gladio said. “Go on to sleep, I’ll stay.”

 

“If it’s still daylight-”

 

“It’s sunset, which means all I’m missing is another meal in the cafeteria,” Gladio replied. He shifted the chair closer until it was up against her bed and propped his right arm on the edge of it, settling in a bit more comfortably.

 

“You’re serious.”

 

“I don’t make a habit of offering what I’m not willing to give,” Gladio said. “I know we’re only a little better than acquaintances at this point-”

 

 _“Friendly_ acquaintances, I thought.”

 

A little ghost of a smile upturned the corners of his mouth and he nodded. “Almost-friends, then,” he said. “I don’t begrudge anyone a little decent shut-eye, especially not people I’m making friends with.”

 

Vis gave him a dubious look, but he ignored it, instead propping his chin on his forearm and closing his eyes.

 

Only then did she notice the dark circles under his eyes. It wasn’t what she noticed when they were open, then she was caught by the amber of his eyes because he always looked right at her when he spoke to her.

 

Maybe he needed a little rest as much as she did.

 

He peeked an eye open at her. “You know you’ll get to sleep better if you close your eyes,” he said.

 

“Will I?” she asked, unable to keep the smile from her lips.

 

“Pro tip,” he replied.

 

“Thanks,” she said with a chuckle, “I might have missed that.”

 

“Happy to help,” he replied.

 

Vis did lean her head back in to the pillows, and let her eyes close again. The same warm heaviness crept over her body, and she relaxed in to it. It didn’t take long before she had drifted off to sleep entirely.

 

No dreams came for her, that night, and rather than waking up in the middle of when everyone else was asleep, she only woke up when the nurse pulled aside the curtain in the morning. Gladio was gone – she hadn’t expected him to still be there, of course, he had work to do – but the chair was still turned around with the back up to the edge of her bed and the unbent folder was between her left arm and her side. On one of the corners of the folder there was a scrawled note that had to be from the Shield himself.

 

_If this turns out too dry, I’ll lend you better reading material._

 

That brought a smile to her lips.


	6. Chapter 6

Vis’s recovery in the infirmary took a couple weeks before the doctor and the nurses were willing to let her loose. The alchemical supplies for the greater potions weren’t found in the time, so she was set with complicated bandages and lined up for physical therapy whenever they thought it safe to take the cast off. For a while Ilda helped her get ready in the mornings and take everything off in the evenings.

 

There was still a lot of down time. All the while Vis poured over the information that Ignis had sent to her. From what it looked like in terms of handwriting on the paperwork – which was actual paper and not digital yet – Central Division really must be short-staffed. There were only two sets of handwriting on the paperwork, and an idle query to Prompto on one of his visits revealed that there were only two people who’d stuck and become permanent staff members. There was also, Prompto admitted, the occasional addition of Iris.

 

“Because who can argue with Iris?” Prompto asked, shrugging.

 

“You certainly aren’t any good at it,” Vis replied.

 

Prompto gave a half-hearted chuckle at that, spreading his hands.

 

“As long as you’re happy,” Vis said. It was strange how comfortable she’d gotten with Prompto over the last five months. His attendance at her sickbed was another mark in his favor, and she couldn’t help but be fond of his good-natured smile and easy-going presence.

 

“H-hey,” Prompto said, “don’t get all… mushy on me like that. I might take it the wrong way.”

 

“There’s no wrong way to take a friend being concerned about you,” Vis said.

 

“You’ve got a point there,” he admitted.

 

When Prompto visited he brought paperwork. When Ilda visited she brought Pyotra or she brought gossip. Monica had no more sweets to bring, but she came with contraband that the infirmary wasn’t letting Vis eat, and that was enough. The visits and the reading passed the time well enough.

 

Once Vis was released – under strict orders to take it easy, which meant taking her pain medication regularly and keeping her working hours to a minimum – Ignis asked that she come take a look at Central Division and meet her new coworkers.

 

Central Division was located in the North Tower of the Citadel, on rooms in the fourth floor. The offices took up the entire floor despite the small number of staff. Like the rest of the Citadel, it still looked and felt like a construction zone.

 

Vis was surprised at just how much space there was for how few people when she reported to her new office. Even Ignis’s tall form couldn’t fill up the room he met her in, and he was half a head taller than her and somewhat broader of shoulder.

 

“I thought it might be best to begin,” Ignis said when she arrived, gesturing her to precede him inside, “with introductions. The team is small enough that it shan’t take long.”

 

He directed her down the main hallway and to a room at the end that was a large, open room with a wall of windows that had pages stuck to them and rolling boards with headings on them in various degrees.

 

There were two well-used desks, deep in paperwork, that faced each other a bit.

 

A third had been added, one that was empty but for a notepad and pens.

 

Vis thought it must be her space.

 

The owners of the other two desks were hovering beside them. Her visit was, quite obviously, enough an event for the ‘small enough’ team that it stopped work.

 

“Lyncea,” Ignis said, extending a hand in the direction of the woman.  

 

She was tall and slender, both taller and slenderer than Vis herself, but with an intense look about her. Lyncea had thick brown hair that she kept pulled back in a tight bun on top of her head and deep set brown eyes.

 

“Excolo,” Ignis went on, gesturing to the black haired man.

 

He was compact, coming up to barely Vis’s shoulder. He had a ready handshake and a charming smile as he greeted her.

 

“Welcome to the forest,” Excolo said in a warm voice, shaking her hand.

 

“You’ll have to forgive him his little joke,” Lyncea said, rolling her eyes tolerantly.

 

 “It’s not my fault the rest of you are twice my height,” he said.

 

Lyncea and Excolo were as different as night and day to look at, and their tone only accentuated it. From the comfortable back and forth exchange of their banter, it was obvious that the two had been working together for a while now.

 

“The Astrals just know how to put things in their proper packages,” Vis said.

 

The look Lyncea gave her was one of pleasant surprise. Considering Excolo worked with Ignis, and likely interfaced with all of the departments… and the Royal Retainers were generally tall, imposing men… Vis figured some attitudes might be poorly arranged about him. He was her coworker, and that was all she needed to know about him.

 

The four of them stood in a moment of calm before Excolo’s gaze shifted to the clock on the wall behind where Vis and Ignis were standing. He tapped Lyncea on the arm with his knuckles, and the two politely excused themselves to head back to their desks.

 

“That’s… everyone?” Vis asked Ignis as the two dove back in to their work. Sure, Prompto had said as much when she asked, but to actually see the volume of paperwork on the walls and pinned to the boards, and to read the headings of what they were taking care of…

 

“In terms of permanent staff,” Ignis replied in a crisp tone.

 

Vis had never gotten a solid, consistent read on Ignis, but she thought the staffing issue might be a bit of a sore point. “Well, at least I won’t have to worry about forgetting anyone’s name,” she said.

 

“Once we’ve got a handle on things it will be easier to acquire additional staff to see things through. Ideally, each of you will have assistants and associates, but as yet we’ve only had the time to set up liaisons between the scouts and the demolition crews,” Ignis explained. “Much of what we’ve been chasing around is inventory management. People and supplies.”

 

Vis nodded, though a glance at the headers on all the boards was enough to prove Ignis was being humble about the workload.

 

“I’d like to give you a few days to get a feel for what we’re working with,” Ignis said, “but unfortunately, we’ve gotten word that the power grid is ready to be brought online beyond the Crown District.”

 

“By which he means that Marshal finally found us an engineer with enough skill to restart the system without frying everything,” Lyncea said from behind her stack of folders.

 

“And we can’t pull anyone from the other divisions to coordinate with because if the work slows with either the scouts or the demo crews we’ll be short on supplies and without anywhere to house the returning masses,” Excolo added.

 

“So, what can I do to help?” Vis asked, turning to Ignis.

 

There was the ghost of a smile on his lips as she turned to him, one that didn’t grow too much, but was echoed in his tone as he said, “I’d like you to start by coordinating with the engineers and seeing what assistance they will require. The Marshal can pull people to assist so long as we have accurate numbers on locations that need to be covered. We’ll also need a copy of their checklist, just in case, and a list of the protocol for startup and in case of emergency.”

 

“Well, give me a clipboard and point me in the direction of the electrical engineers,” Vis said.

 

Lyncea held up a clipboard, and Excolo held up what looked like a copy of a map of the Citadel.

 

And without further commentary on it, Vis set to work.

 

*

 

The work was physically easier, that was for certain, but Central Division— _Ignis_ had a role in just about everything that was going on, which meant that there was a lot to do. Despite his lack of sight, he was a better administrator than anyone else that had returned to the city. It turned out that the headers and lists on the boards were all the things he was keeping track of _in his head._

 

As part of her orientation, Vis was sent to check in with the teams Central Division was nominally responsible for and assess how well the work being completed was progressing. It was also an excuse, the Marshal told her when he checked in at the end of her first week, to keep an eye on the morale of the crews.

 

It was a surprise when the Marshal checked in, with Monica in tow, to make a weekly report and to exchange updates with the office staff. Vis hadn’t realized that he was also technically assigned to Central Division.

 

Vis suspected sending her out and about in to the city had a little to do with making sure that she didn’t lose her own morale, but she appreciated the sunshine and the thoughtfulness in her assignment. She had short shifts, still, but she tried to make sure she helped out Lyncea and Excolo whenever she could.

 

The city was swelling with people, and as more and more of them joined there were varying skill levels.

 

It was satisfying work, especially when the cleared streets let the crews get to real work on the actual _rebuilding_ of a few of the closer broken parts of the city. That was integral in the plan to restore the first block of the power grid outside of the Crown District.

 

But despite the change in workload, or perhaps due to the continued medication supplied for her recovery, she slept fitfully. Central Division slept in the North Dorm rooms, and though the number of bodies was the same when Monica and the others working with the Marshal were counted, trying to get rest in them wasn’t. The dorm beds were on the small side, and with the cast on her left arm it was hard to get comfortable enough to sleep. It didn’t help that every time the person who had taken over the bunk above hers got up or down – sometimes several times a night – they made the entire bunk lurch in a way that flopped her stomach like it had when she’d fallen from the fire escape.

 

Short sleeping hours meant she woke up earlier.

 

She drifted through cleaning up in the communal bathrooms before heading down to the early morning skeleton crew that was handling the breakfast for the scouts. They still got started as close to dawn as they could manage, stretching as many miles in to their runs as possible. There were more faces among them now, but the early shift had all her old comrades.

 

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Quald said, grinning as Vis stepped in to line behind him.

 

“Good morning, Quald,” Vis said, reaching up with her good arm to ruffle the man’s bright orange-red hair.

 

He tried to duck out of the way, swatting at her wrist. “Hey, hey! Not the hair, Vis!”

 

“You’ve been saying that for, what, four months now?” she replied. “If you don’t want me to ruffle your hair, don’t make it such a tempting style for ruffling.”

 

“Tch!” Quald retorted, turning sideways to keep an eye on Vis. “Ilda! Save me from your friend!”

 

“You’re _way_ too loud for this early in the morning, Q-ball,” Ilda said, covering her ears with both hands as she came up behind Vis to join the line.

 

“Are you two still bickering?” Vis asked.

 

“Don’t read anything in to it,” Quald said, “I bicker with everyone.”

 

Ilda sighed dramatically, leaning against Vis’s back to peek over her shoulder. “Alas, my unrequited love continues,” she said.

 

Quald rolled his eyes. “Do you have to talk like that?” he asked.

 

They progressed through the line. Once they had their food, Ilda hooked her arm in Vis’s and steered her over to a separate table from where the rest of the scouts were gathering. Vis was glad of it, because while she missed her old friends among the scouts, she’d had too little sleep for it not to be just too damn early in the morning for all that energy.

 

Ilda, at least, seemed to get it.

 

They settled down at a table a distance away, and Ilda stretched her arms overhead before cracking her neck. “North dorm doesn’t suit you, does it?” she asked.

 

“Mostly it’s the-” Vis held up her immobilized left arm. “It’s impossible to get to sleep on the skinny bunks. I don’t think either dorm would be better.”

 

“At least the folks in Central don’t worry so much about early mornings?” Ilda asked, hopefully.

 

“That’s a mixed blessing,” Vis replied. “I mean don’t get me wrong it’s nice to be off the whole crack of dawn roll-call, but we go in promptly after breakfast and… everyone else works through until dinner.”

 

“What do they have you working on?”

 

“Right now? I’m maintaining the records brought in by the liaisons to be sure that we maintain proper supply. Prompto put in a request to transfer coordinating the map data entry over to Central now that Ignis has someone who can read the map markings and do all the calculations. So I’ve been writing up a conversion guide in case someone has to follow up on my work for any reason.”

 

“Look at you, stepping up the ladder in importance,” Ilda said with a chuckle.

 

“I don’t know that it makes me important,” Vis dismissed. “I’m only just back to a full shift now that I can sit for two hours and work on the map data. I had been just working a six hour shift a day.”

 

“Made you a bit stir crazy, wasn’t it?” Ilda asked.

 

“I couldn’t tell you why,” Vis replied. “I used to sit at a desk for eight hours straight managing everything at my office. Hell, I used to predict issues and strategize to cover them.”

 

“What was that, ten years ago?”

 

“Twelve.”

 

“And in the meantime you’ve been doing all that while on your feet holding a weapon,” Ilda replied. “It’s not surprising you’ve changed a bit. We all have.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“Me?” Ilda asked, and then laughed as she shook her head. “This whole running up walls and jumping across buildings routine is pretty much the exact opposite of how I used to live. I told you about my high rise in Escarta, yeah? Well I worked at a clothing boutique in the Crown District. Tip top heels and a waist cincher and I wore about three pounds of makeup a day.”

 

Vis tipped her head, looking at her friend. She could see it, she thought. Ilda had a very fine bone structure, and the kind of pale complexion that was common among Lucians. Her figure was petite for her height – something Vis often had issues recognizing as she was taller than most of the women she knew – and when she sat or stood there was a sort of steadiness about her that oozed quiet confidence. It didn’t take much to picture her in expensive clothes and a tall pair of heels in one of the high-priced store fronts of the Crown District.

 

“I could see that,” Vis said, leaning her cheek in one hand. “I mean it explains why you got on so well with Iris when she was running the shop in Lestallum.”

 

“It’s hard _not_ to get on with Iris,” Ilda said with a chuckle. “Especially when she decides she wants something, she’s a force of nature.”

 

That got an honest chuckle out of Vis, who could recall a time or two in Lestallum when Iris had charmed someone unsuspecting in to a purchase they hadn’t intended. She could be such a ray of sunshine, sometimes, that it had been easy to forget the darkness encroaching.

 

“Hey, Ilda!” Prompto called before flopping down in the chair beside the two of them. “And Vis! This is a treat.”

 

“Good morning, Prompto,” Vis said, unable to keep from smiling back at him when he broke out in to a grin.

 

“I hate to interrupt the two of you,” he said, “but I’ve got to steal Ilda.”

 

“Have a little _tact,_ Prom,” Ilda griped at him. “We’re in the middle of talking.”

 

“I knew you’d have to go on shift,” Vis said, holding up her good hand. “It was good to catch up with you, though.”

 

“See? Vis understands,” Prompto said, leaning over in Ilda’s direction.

 

With an exaggerated roll of her eyes, Ilda pushed her chair back from the table and scooped her tray up. “Dinner tonight, Vis?” she asked.

 

“Sure, I’ll meet you here after your shift?”

 

“Catch you then,” Ilda said, waving as she headed over to return her tray.

 

Prompto smiled at the two of them before he got up, giving Vis a grateful smile. “Hey thanks, we’ve got that next section of B sector to get through, and I’ve been making sure to send any of the new folks out with a veteran, just to be careful.”

 

“I understand,” Vis said, nodding and waving him off. “Now go and get your teams in order. I need clear notes if I’m going to keep pace with everyone.”

 

“Sure thing,” Prompto said, offering a little salute. “It’s good to see you back on your feet again,” he added as he headed off.

 

Vis watched them go. It was nice to be back with them, if only for a little bit of time. There had been a lot of friendly feelings when she was in the scouts. Not that she wasn’t working well with the people in Central Division, but everything ran much more business-like in the offices. She looked up to check the clock, and noticed that it was time to get headed to work. She finagled the tray to the return before heading back to the North Tower and the offices of Central Division.

 

Going in to the offices was an exercise in calming herself.

 

The trip wasn’t a bother, really, but…

 

Like the rest of the Citadel, there was still dust in the corners and cracks in the walls. The ornamentation in the hallways – impressive crystal carvings that traced the top and bottom of the hallways – was cracked in places and other parts were missing entirely. There were holes in the walls that looked like they were made by bullets, and spots of char that looked like the burn of magic.

 

Vis was sure of it. She had first-hand experience with what both kinds of damage looked like.

 

During the Fall, the Citadel had gone dark. Vis remembered that, because they’d closed the office early so everyone could be where they wanted during the peace treaty signing. She’d been out at a sports bar around the corner from her central office that was showing the live coverage of the proceedings. She could remember the roar of engines overhead, so loud that the entire building the bar was in shook, rattling dust out of cracks. As the liquor bottles tipped off their shelves, her eyes had been glued to the screen. The Citadel was struck by a projectile of some sort, and there was an explosion of fire and debris from the West Tower. Everyone around front was screaming, suddenly, and then the reporter shouted for the cameraperson to run, and the feed went from live to static. By then, though the bar was empty as everyone had gone to the front windows or outside. Even the bar tender was out from behind the bar. A loud roaring outside announced an airship, and mechanical soldiers had dropped from the sky. Bullets cracked the glass of the windows, and everyone was scrambling back and away. She dived down behind the end of the bar as the bullets cut through the room, huddling behind the steel refrigerators hidden behind the thick wood until the dull thud of bullets had gone. In a panic, she’d frozen, staring up at the impact holes in the stone of the back wall.

 

It wasn’t that going to work on the fourth floor of the North Tower was like walking in to a war zone, but she did have to suppress a shudder every time she passed those scars in the building. She _knew_ what the damage had come from.

 

As she headed in to the office that morning, she was surprised to be stopped by Ignis’s careful voice. “A moment, if you please.”

 

“You know, you’re my boss, you technically don’t have to ask for my time.”

 

“I rather think of us all as more of a team than any sort of supervisor-subordinate situation,” Ignis said. He was seated at a desk in one of the offices near the elevator, on the way down the main hall to the biggest room where all the intel and big ticket work projects were handled from.

 

“Well, that’s nice of you,” she said. Despite running missions with him during the Darkness, she’d never quite gotten a handle on how to interact with him easily. At the time he’d been quite standoffish. He’d mellowed since then, but despite being familiar with him things hadn’t quite become easy.

 

“It’s practical,” Ignis replied. “Besides, in this instance there’s enough trust to warrant it.”

 

“Thank you,” she said, having concluded that the easiest way to interact with Ignis was to be direct.

 

“Do you have an update on the grid work?”

 

“Now that we’ve got a crew of the Exineris employees in from Cleigne, the work is progressing. They’re coordinating with one of the building crews to try and repair some damaged sections. The problem seems to be that the design of the isolated systems for the Crown District is blocking the power flow. They’re working on a report about our alternatives.”

 

“Alternatives to-?”

 

“Well, I’ve never been much good at this sort of thing, but from what I understand it has to do with the way that the Crown District’s systems were isolated. The District was always connected to the overall city grid, but during the Fall the systems were damaged, and right now we just don’t have the parts to repair it. We need to manufacture what’s blown and broken… and we need power to do that.”

 

Ignis sighed.

 

“If they bypass the sections of the system that created the isolation of the District, they think they can get the exterior grid running again. At least the section we’ve marked for power up.”

 

“I sense a catch.”

 

“But there’s an equal chance that they will fry the Crown District and all its transformers and sub-stations.”

 

“We’ll need to wait on the report to make a final assessment, then,” Ignis said.

 

“I thought you’d say as much,” Vis replied. “I’ve asked them to have it ready day after tomorrow so I can copy the other administrators before the meeting on it.”

 

“When is the meeting?”

 

“I’ve scheduled that with the liaisons for Monday.”

 

“No conflicts?”

 

“I have a broken arm,” Vis said, “not a concussion.”

 

“Anymore,” Ignis said.

 

The two of them chuckled at that, having grown accustomed to the little sarcastic exchange. Vis was pleased to be able to share that with him.

 

“I have another matter I need to put in to your capable hands,” Ignis said.

 

Vis tucked away her notes on the power grid and flipped to a new page of her notepad. Technology was making its way back in to the ranks, but Central Division wasn’t yet requisitioning tablets, preferring to leave those for a while and sticking to notepads and pens, of which there were an abundance. “I’m all ears.”

 

“With the influx of returning citizens, we need to make some adjustments to how we house newcomers.”

 

“That makes sense,” Vis said. “The dorms are getting too full for comfort, anymore. We could expand them by converting some of the unused larger rooms into additional dorm space, but we’ll have to look in to acquiring beds to put in them. I believe Roswitha said that all the ones that had been in regular storage had been put in to service.”

 

“You had cause to ask her about the supply of beds?”

 

“The East Dormitory had an accident and was looking to replace three.”

 

Ignis hummed for a moment in reply to that, but did not speak words on the subject. Instead, he went on, “That will likely be necessary, but I believe additionally we need to start placing the existing personnel. No one handles long hours and stressful situations well without a place to relax.”

 

“Where will we place them?”

 

“In the Citadel, to start with,” Ignis said. “There’s more than enough space to house those working in accommodations beyond the dormitory rooms on the lower floors. I’ve spoken with Gladio about the state of construction in them, and he says that the crews working on the repairs to the building should be able to start delivering finished spaces within the week.”

 

“I hadn’t realized the demolition department was working on repairs.”

 

“It was a priority of his. Seeing the Citadel with gaping holes was… unsettling.”

 

“Considering how they got there…” Vis said, resisting the urge to shiver as she thought back to the Fall. “… it makes sense,” she concluded.

 

“I’ve requested that each of the other Administrators submit a list of personnel in need of accommodation within the Citadel. It should go without saying that the three of you are included in the list from Central Division.”

 

“It could have, but I’m glad it didn’t,” Vis replied. “It’s good to know we’re appreciated.”

 

“I would be more than just remiss if I didn’t look after my own,” Ignis said.

 

“Considering the influx of people, it’s about time to start filling desks in here,” Vis said.

 

The shift in Ignis’s demeanor was sudden. His expression stiffened and his shoulders straightened. “As we have yet to determine our needs, it is premature to begin assigning new personnel.”

 

“Uh…” Vis mumbled, unsure she’d even heard him correctly about that. There was already too much to do, and with everything on the administration’s to-do list, it would only get worse.

 

He didn’t really mean that they weren’t ready for new staff, did he? He couldn’t. No one could manage under this sort of pressure for long.

 

But… that had been what he’d said.

 

“I can’t agree,” she concluded when she realized she had heard him correctly.

 

“For what reason?” Ignis asked in crisp tones.

 

“We’re not prepared for any expansion of anything unless we increase the workforce here, and we keep ending up with more work. The map data from the scouts, for instance. Or prioritizing the supply runs. And you want to relocate people. We won’t have the time to make a move. And then the electrical grid work is also extending beyond what the four of us can handle, and once the grid’s back on line the reconstruction effort is going to need new subdivisions. We’ll need to get the other basic infrastructure services online, water and sewer to start with if we’re going to move people outside of the Citadel without causing an outbreak of… something nasty. And you asked just yesterday how the food stores were doing with the growing population. We’re going to need to find a supply that isn’t in cans or boxes, and I don’t even know where to start with that-”

 

“The growing fields beyond the urban area.”

 

“Ok, well we don’t have a path to those yet, and-”

 

Ignis stopped her words with a raised hand. “You have made your point.”

 

“Just with a few too many words,” Vis concluded.

 

“Perhaps,” Ignis allowed. “But I might not otherwise have been convinced.” He turned his head toward the hall. “Come up with a number of positions to be filled, and I’ll speak to the Marshal.”

 

Then he turned and left, before she could reply.

 

Vis stared after him, watching as he unerringly headed out into the central hallway and turned and headed out of sight.

 

“I thought he was going to light you on fire,” Excolo said, his voice interrupting her thoughts.

 

“What?” Vis asked, turning to her coworker.

 

She found that both her coworkers were peering around the corner from the main office at her, Lyncea standing just behind Excolo. They were both watching her with surprised expressions.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lyncea said. “She’s still injured, and Ignis isn’t the type to lash out when he’s angry.”

 

“Angry-?” Vis asked, confused. “He didn’t really want to hear what I had to say, but he didn’t seem angry.”

 

“Didn’t seem angry _to you_ ,” Lyncea said. “We’ve both been trying to have that conversation with him since August and he shuts it down every time.”

 

“Once he actually did light something on fire,” Excolo said. “The stack of folders, remember?”

 

“That’s right,” Lyncea said.

 

“What’s so bad about more personnel?”

 

“He’s just… been opposed to it,” Lyncea replied.

 

“My theory is that he’s worried about balancing out the working relationships,” Excolo added.

 

“That’s every job,” Vis replied.

 

Lyncea looked like she was trying to form a rebuttal, but ended up shrugging. They had too much to do to spend much longer talking. Vis was at least enough on the mend after a month that she didn’t need to pull short hours – which had been making her feel guilty when she first started, because Lyncea and Excolo pulled the weight of several people each and she was heading to the bunk room to take pain meds while they were hoping for late dinners – but they’d gotten more work to go along with it.

 

They had started, among the three of them, enforcing dinner breaks so that the food they were all getting to eat wasn’t cold or leftovers from the standard fair. Rules at the table were that they didn’t speak a word about what happened on the fourth floor, but that evening it was enough to dampen all the conversation.

 

The cafeteria was busy enough that the lack of conversation wasn’t too awkward, but none of them were tired enough to ignore its absence entirely. Thankfully, Ilda joined them.

 

“I envy you the desk work today,” Ilda announced as she joined them at the table in the corner. “We made it to the east-central shopping center today, and we had to take _inventory_ of everything.”

 

Excolo and Lyncea smirked at that, both pointing at Vis.

 

“Blame your friend,” Excolo said.

 

“Who blames our boss,” Vis replied. “And I could just say thank you very nicely to the wonderful, dedicated scouts,” she added, offering Ilda a smile.

 

“If you weren’t still in a cast-” Ilda threatened, but her words had no real heat to them. “How’s the recovery process?”

 

“I’m stepping down the pain medication,” Vis said, proudly.

 

“So long as you’re doing that responsibly,” Ilda said. “None of that, ‘I don’t like pills’ crap.”

 

“I’m doing it gradually,” Vis insisted.

 

Ilda took a bite of the food she’d gathered and then pointed her fork at Vis. “You didn’t see how awful you looked in that infirmary.”

 

“They weren’t exactly encouraging me to get up and take walks when I was in there,” Vis replied.

 

“They could’ve brought you a mirror.”

 

“She’s gotten much healthier looking, I’d say,” a deep voice said from behind them.

 

Everyone at the table looked up, and up again to take in the Royal Shield where he stood behind them. Ilda gawked, just a bit. Excolo sputtered, choking just a little on his vegetables, and Lyncea patted him on the back. Vis smiled to see him there, it had been several weeks since she’d run in to him and he was always good to see.

 

“Good evening, Gladio,” Vis greeted.

 

“Vis,” Gladio replied, nodding to them, “and company.”

 

There was an empty seat at the table, and Vis gestured to it. “Seat’s open, if you want it,” she said.

 

“Maybe for a bit,” he said. “I’m supposed to be meeting Iris.”

 

“Wouldn’t hold your breath there, big guy,” Ilda said. “Saw her catch Prompto as he was leaving the office.”

 

Gladio rolled his eyes at that. “Give me something better to think about. What were you all talkin’ about?”

 

“Vis cutting her pain meds,” Ilda said with an amused twinkle in her eye.

 

A mischievous twinkle.

 

Vis gave Ilda a sharp look at that. “We were-”

 

“Just be careful about it,” Gladio said, turning his attention to her. The look he gave her was a serious one, his eyes catching hers and holding them.

 

“Of course I will,” Vis said, forgetting what it was she was going to say to cover for Ilda. She kept her eyes on Gladio’s, nodding a little. From the corner of her eye she could see that Lyncea’s brows lift. “I just don’t like feeling drugged all the time.”

 

“Fair enough,” Gladio allowed. He seemed to sense the attention he was drawing, or perhaps he noticed that no one else at the table had taken a bite since he sat down without a tray. “Ah, I should go grab chow before they run out of this batch,” he said, rising from his seat. “You guys enjoy your dinner.”

 

“See you,” Vis said, waving her good hand.

 

As soon as Gladio had departed in to the chatter of the crowd, Ilda snatched her hand and leaned in at her to ask, “Since when does the Royal Shield drop by to check on you?”

 

Across the table, Excolo laughed softly, taking a sip of his drink.

 

“Since never, Ilda,” Vis said, “this is the first time.”

 

And it was.

 

(If you didn’t count him dropping in to the infirmary.)

 

From the look Ilda favored Vis with, she didn’t believe that for a second.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me longer to get out because there's scene that I deleted out of it. I'm quite proud of my reconstruction!Insomnia that's going on, but... well... Honestly, it was dragging. So I cut it out, and it flows so much better.
> 
> I love the world building here as much as you all do, but I'm going for equal parts of that and fluffy ducklings. 
> 
> Also I'm giddy to be supplying you all with more of the duckling portions.

The lists were submitted. Thankfully by the time Monica brought in the ‘priority listings’ the trio in Central Division had time to interview a few candidates for team member positions. They were still understaffed, but at least there were others to lend a hand.

 

And, thankfully, after seven weeks in a cast, Vis was due in for an evaluation on the break.

 

Ilda went with her, appreciating that Vis was a little nervous about the prognosis on whether or not she would need the continued weight of the cast to protect her arm or whether she’d get her arm back.

 

The result was a mixed blessing.

 

Doctor Ross – a relatively new arrival, from some time in October – had been assigned to the infirmary. She was willing to remove the larger, bulkier cast that had come with a bit of scaffolding to allow her to move her lower arm. It left her with a brace that fitted on her upper arm and a lanyard looking contraption to take the weight off. It was just a precaution, the doctor said, though he had a funny look on his face as he said it.

 

“A precaution against what?” Ilda asked, quicker in the tongue than Vis at that moment.

 

“To prevent long-term damage,” Ross replied. She turned and pulled the x-rays up on the display, marking off with a colored marker where there were cracks in the screen instead of in the bone before she pointed out a few oddities in the image. “These don’t appear to be related to the current damage. I’ve seen it quite a bit recently, though mostly from the demolition crew members. Vis, your file doesn’t list you as Kingsglaive-”

 

“What? Me? No. I’m not,” Vis confirmed.

 

“But these marks are similar to what I’m seeing from them. It might have something to do with the way they all took their healing.”

 

“You mean slapdash and on the run?” Vis asked.

 

The doctor held her hands up. “I can’t say that.”

 

“I was a Hunter… during the Darkness,” Vis replied. “I can.”

 

Ilda chuckled at that. “Used to patch each other up in the backs of the trucks. Always made a real nice show when they got back to Lestallum, but if you looked for it you could still catch them stumbling a step when they hopped down.”

 

“You were a Hunter?” Ross asked.

 

“Sort of?” Vis replied. “I mean I wasn’t highly ranked at it.”

 

“I’d always sort of assumed you were Crownsguard,” the doctor said, turning her attention back to Vis’s file.

 

“What?” Vis asked.

 

“Just… the way the Retainers take an interest,” Doctor Ross replied. “Not all of my patients get quite so many esteemed visitors.”

 

“They don’t really see themselves that way,” Vis said, feeling a little awkward.

 

“The rest of us do,” the doctor said. She seemed to sense Vis’s discomfort, because she pressed on. “But that might explain it. You were in Lestallum, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Vis agreed.

 

“I’m still trying to make a study of it, which is hard to do with the way things are, but some of the combatants from Lestallum have markings like this,” she said, tapping the screen. “I think it had to do with the stores of healing potions that were in use there.”

 

“They looked normal to me,” Ilda said.

 

“I couldn’t say without a sample to test,” the doctor replied. “And from all the reports there’s nothing left of Lestallum to find samples from. I mean if you get technical about it there’s regional differences in healing potions anyway. A difference from the way the alchemists brew it, or from the potency of the local ingredients. And absorption rates vary depending on what’s been in your system before.”

 

Vis frowned at that. “So… the potions in Lestallum might not have worked as well on someone from Insomnia?”

 

“Exactly,” Ross said. “Or at least that’s my theory, anyway. But these marks here – whether they’re from potion differences or healing with a questionable diet – are what I’m concerned about, so I want you to keep that brace on for another three weeks, at least. I’ll check in on it again before year-end.”

 

“I’ll probably continue needing my arm,” Vis said with a sigh. Ilda patted her back consolingly. “And it’s only another… month.”

 

“Just look at it this way,” the doctor said brightly, “at least no one has to carry your dinner tray for you anymore.”

 

That didn’t seem much consolation, though it set Ilda to chuckling. They retreated from the infirmary to the North Tower bunk room and Ilda helped her figure out how to work the damn thing on her own for basic daily usage, and then they both split off and went to work.

 

Vis pointedly ignored the scarring of the walls as she stepped off the elevator, heading in to Central Division, and nearly collided head first with one of her two new subordinates, Heremine. The young woman – younger than Vis, at least – was carrying a file folder that almost went up in a puff of papers as she skidded to a stop.

 

“Miss Sursa!” Heremine squeaked, holding up both hands with the disshelved folder clamped tightly in her right hand.

 

“Call me Vis,” Vis reminded her. She’d picked Heremine and Edastis from the pool of those willing to transfer with some skills, but she hadn’t counted on the young woman recalling her from Lestallum and being shocked at the lack of formality.

 

Vis may have dealt with Hunters and Kingsglaive and Crownsguard during the Darkness, and that may have put her in the class of combatants, but she was just a regular citizen now. A regular citizen in an arm brace.

 

“I’ll try to remember that,” Heremine said, not for the first time. “I was just looking for you, M-”

 

Vis lifted a brow at her.

 

“Ma’am,” Heremine concluded.

 

“Vis,” Vis corrected again.

 

“The Marshal’s team finally submitted their list, so all of those ready for housing assignments are accounted for!” Heremine said, thrusting the folder forward.

 

Vis had a sudden appreciation for Gladio’s method of carrying folders, but instead of taking this one and tucking it away, she gestured to her arm brace and started forward in to the hall. Heremine fell in to step behind her.

 

Heremine was shorter than Vis, a head shorter, and her straight hair was a silky brown that in any other time Vis would swear was from a bottle. She kept pace, though, skipping ahead to open the door to Vis’s office so she didn’t have to.

 

It was still strange, having a desk in a room without Lyncea and Excolo nearby trading quips, but everyone in Central Division had agreed that the quartering assignments were something that needed to be kept private to be sure that they were fair. So here was Vis, tasked with settling everyone and cut off from the rest of the – now slightly more bustling – office. Heremine set out the folder with its lists, promising that Edastis would be in with the information about the available spaces in the Citadel. Then she bustled back out to the communal room and went back to the tasks she’d taken over from Vis to free her up for the current priority work.

 

Cross-referencing the lists from each of the Retainers, Vis found that there were thirty-eight people to re-house in the first group, essential personnel for each of the three divisions. Her name was on that list, as was everyone currently assigned to Central Division. There weren’t as many people in Central to house, so it was easy to provide for all of them.

 

Vis took the time to translate the multi-page lists in to a single roster of names for housing. Considering the full lists from Prompto and Gladio’s departments were multiple pages, it took quite a while. She was so focused on her task that Excolo had to knock on the door to get her attention when it was time to go to lunch.

 

She offered him an apologetic smile and tucked her notes away, rising and heading out to join him. The whole department was making a point of taking a lunch break, which they included Ignis in. With the new faces and personalities, it was a good way to get to know each other.

 

They pointedly did not talk about work until they returned to the fourth floor offices.

 

So it was early afternoon before Vis had the chance to ask Edastis, “Where’s my room availability listings?”

 

“Th-they haven’t come in yet,” Edastis said. “The liaison hasn’t been by today, and I got caught up with the supply reports-”

 

Vis held up a hand. “That’s ok, I’ll go find out for myself.”

 

“But you-”

 

“This is my task,” she said, patting him on the arm before turning to head for the elevators.

 

It was a pain trying to interface with the other departments, still, as technology was at a premium and there was no real network to speak of between the offices. The Marshal was running the actual servers out of one of the common floor rooms because the reconstruction of the Citadel hadn’t focused so much on the fine tuned portions like the network cables. The crews had been more concerned about getting the walls back up and solid than restoring the wiring that had gone through them.

 

So for now it was still a lot of elevator trips to get from one department to the other.

 

At least they were effective elevator trips. Vis was able to extract a copy of the room status that she needed from Turcadia – one of Gladio’s administrative staff – and went about assigning the rooms to the essential personnel.

 

It took way longer than Vis thought was reasonable, and she’d had to keep bumping herself to the bottom of the list to get everyone situated.

 

Still, she ended up with her own little apartment on the eleventh floor of the North Tower. Like all the starter residences, it had prepped walls – mudded and sanded but without any paint – and basic furniture, but with so much to do Vis just hauled in a sleeping bag to throw on the temporary mattress and called it done. Getting the housing assignments completed was enough of a task that she’d earned a couple days of sleeping in.

 

It should’ve been enough to send her to sleep like a baby, with all the work she was doing.

 

But it wasn’t.

 

The bed was more comfortable, but it just wasn’t _right_.

 

It could’ve been her lingering injuries or the brace they’d given her to sleep in at night for her ribs and shoulder, but it didn’t matter because something was off.

 

Probably something had always been off about being in the Citadel, just without other people nearby it was harder to even _get_ to sleep.

 

A week of waking up sweaty and washing up before pacing from one end of the apartment to the other and Vis couldn’t stand it anymore. As she burst in to wakefulness on her second Thursday in the apartment, she splashed cold water on her face before snatching up her keys and heading for the elevator.

 

She hadn’t _memorized_ Gladio’s route, but she figured if she just keyed in the highest floor on the elevator that would actually engage she’d be able to find the roof level.

 

At least she hoped as much.

 

It was so late there was no one else waiting for the elevator when she got to it, and no one in the car when she stepped in.

 

She ran her finger along the side of the console. There were buttons for the main levels, and a digital pad to input floors. A little script to the side of the keypad indicated that special access codes were needed to get to the top floor. Well, she’d just have to go to one below it and find some stairs. She started hitting numbers, unsurprised when the top fifteen didn’t come on at all. The sixtieth floor was as good as anything else, though, she figured, and at the very least the walk would calm her down.

 

Just being out of the little shoebox apartment felt better.

 

On the forty-eighth floor the doors opened, and the Royal Shield stepped in.

 

He stopped when he saw her, a puzzled look on his handsome face. “Vis?” he asked.

 

The doors closed behind him. Suddenly aware that she had stormed out of her apartment in pajamas and slippers, Vis fidgeted, putting her good arm across the front of herself. “Hi Gladio,” she said.

 

The car headed up. He turned to look at the display, “Late night… business…?” he asked.

 

“Not exactly,” she replied, shifting back from the keypad so he could enter what floor he wanted.

 

“Do you mind if I ask?”

 

“Kind of.”

 

“I’m just… we didn’t bother finishing the repairs up there, yet. And… uh…” he gestured to her feet, “it’s a little dangerous without… boots.”

 

Vis sighed, tipping her head back against the side of the elevator. “Of course it is.”

 

“Need some fresh air?” he asked.

 

She nodded.

 

Gladio reached over and hit the ‘cancel call’ button before typing in forty-two. “This’ll work better for you, then,” he said.

 

“What’s on the forty-second floor?” Vis asked, watching the way his muscles shifted as he moved.

 

“An observation deck. Don’t go telling everyone it’s there, but… given the circumstances, it looks like you could use it.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

He nodded. They stood quietly while the elevator shifted directions.

 

“Would you mind some company?” he asked.

 

“I don’t want to disturb you,” Vis replied. “I doubt you’re up at this hour for no reason. Your office is just as busy as mine, so…”

 

“Hey,” Gladio said.

 

Vis looked up at him, surprised at how soft his expression was when her eyes met his.

 

“I asked if I could accompany you.”

 

“Yeah, you did.”

 

“And if I had work to do at two in the morning that wasn’t sipping whisky, there’d be a bigger problem than logistics and work force deployment.”

 

That managed to get a chuckle out of Vis, despite herself. “Prompto said you came to get me. Thank you for that.”

 

“You’re welcome.” Gladio shifted on his feet, turning and putting a shoulder against the elevator wall. “Prompto was a little put out by the assist. Well, he was until we got there and saw the damage.”

 

“Was it bad?”

 

“Honestly, I’m surprised the whole wall didn’t come apart and bury you in a stack of bricks.”

 

Vis shuddered a little at that. “Regardless of Prompto’s mood about it, I’m glad you were there to help.”

 

“He was too, you know.”

 

“Talking like that I sound pretty important, huh?” she asked.

 

“You are,” Gladio said. “I mean, everyone who’s here is, but… don’t sell yourself short.”

 

“There’s other people that can do what I do.”

 

“You’re going to feel how you feel, but I disagree,” Gladio said. The doors opened and he gestured her to head out before he did. “I’ve watched your work showing Prompto what to do, and the mop-head’s been much better since. He does reports, now, without having to be nagged about it for two weeks. And I don’t think I need to tell you just how much of an improvement you’ve been in Ignis’s office. What are you all up to now? Nine people?”

 

The forty-second floor, as they stepped out in to it, was a broad hallway that pointed directly towards a bank of what looked like windows from a distance. Gladio motioned her along towards them, his eyes checking the expensive looking carvings in the wall as they went.

 

“Ten,” Vis replied, following along as he led the way to the wall of windows.

 

The hallway widened as they reached them, in to what must have been a sort of reception area. To one side there was a wooden paneled area that had to be a bar, and the windows turned out to be glass doors that led out on to what Gladio called the observation area.

 

“So we’re going to have to agree to disagree,” Gladio said, pushing the door open, “because you convinced _Ignis_ to alter his plans, and not just anyone can get away with that.”

 

She could let him have that one, but only because her coworkers said much the same.

 

A swirl of autumn air came rushing at the two of them, and Vis put her arms around herself, pulling her robe shut in the front. The building was warm enough on the inside, but this high up the air was crisp.

 

“It’s always windy this time of year in the east tower,” Gladio said, coming outside with her.

 

The fresh air was delightful, Vis found. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, feeling the cool air rush across her skin and cool the sweat in her hair. “I’ll try to remember that for next time,” Vis said, letting her eyes shut.

 

They stood in silence for a while, but a gentle hand touched her elbow. She blinked her eyes open only to have Gladio gently guide her forward to where there were a few old looking benches. She nodded as the two of them took a seat, and let her eyes slip closed.

 

“Not sleeping well?” he asked.

 

“Too busy to sleep,” she replied. “Too drugged to sleep well.”

 

“Does the arm hurt that much?”

 

“It’s not the arm so much as the shoulder, and it’s not so much the shoulder as it is the rib cage,” Vis replied.

 

“There should be healing potions-”

 

Vis shook her head. “So far all of the dispensaries have been empty of them. Probably from the survivors after the Fall, though some of it looks like the caches of them were… deliberately smashed. It’s hard to tell at this point. Either way we’re saving what stores we have for more serious injuries than mine because the alchemists haven’t found what they need to make what we don’t have. So I get a handful of pain pills at regular intervals and shorter hours than everyone else. It’d be great if it wasn’t that I couldn’t quite get to sleep.”

 

Gladio nodded at that, sighing. “It’s difficult,” he agreed.

 

Laughing softly, Vis shook her head. “It’s also hard to explain to the nurses at the infirmary.”

 

His arm came up on to the back of the bench and he tipped his head back to look up at the stars. “Just… be careful with how long you stay on those,” he said, “we had some Crownsguard recruits back when that… had a rough time stopping using them.”

 

“The nurse said to try and stay ahead of the pain, but I’ve mostly been taking them when the pain makes me nauseous. I had a coworker, back when, who had a problem with them. He was always sneaking to the bathroom and coming back with the weirdest look in his eye. He thought he was subtle about it, you know?”

 

“Mm,” Gladio agreed.

 

The wind picked up for a moment, and Vis tucked her robe around herself more. She wondered what exactly was wrong with her. Anyone else given the proximity to the hulking expanse of Gladio would likely find a way to flirt. She was just tossing about idle conversation to try and cover for how rattled she was from the dreams.

 

“Hey, I… thanks for this.”

 

Gladio made a noise low in his throat that might have been an acceptance or it might have been a generalized grunt. One eye peeked open and his head turned so he could look at her. “Relax,” he said, “it’s late. It’s nice to have company on a sleepless night.”

 

Vis nodded. His arm was warm, she could feel it through her robe and on the back of her shoulders. He didn’t make a move to put his hand on her, but he was warm and solid and _there_. She took a cue from him and let her eyes slip shut.

 

It was just a minute, wasn’t it, as she sat there with her eyes shut? But no, it couldn’t be, because her head felt heavy against his arm and he had a gentle hand against her shoulder.

 

“I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to nod off, but it’s a bit cold to sleep out here this time of year,” he rumbled softly beside her.

 

“Ngh… sorry about that,” Vis said, reaching up to rub her eyes.

 

“Don’t be,” Gladio replied, taking her elbow to help her to her feet. “If you’re this relaxed, maybe you’ll be able to get some sleep in your bed. That’s gotta be worth an hour sitting in good fresh air.”

 

“Don’t spoil me,” Vis said, attempting to rouse herself more fully. It didn’t work. The exhaustion and the little edge of pain that was creeping up on her was enough to cause something akin to inebriation. It took some maneuvering just to get her body upright and then up to her feet, the cold had stiffened everything, but Gladio was a pair of warm, strong, helpful hands for the assist.

 

He kept a gentle hand on her elbow as he navigated them back to the elevator.

 

“What’s your floor?”

 

“Eleventh,” Vis replied, yawning. She was swaying on her feet, but Gladio gently settled her near the wall of the elevator car.

 

“Alright,” he said, punching in the floor she’d said.

 

It took a moment for her to notice that he’d done that, and another for that to seem strange. “What’s yours?”

 

“Forty-fifth,” he replied.

 

“Then why’d you just press eleven?”

 

“Because it’s in the West Tower, and I didn’t think you wanted to come home with me tonight,” Gladio said, chuckling.

 

“What?” Vis asked, blinking.

 

“It was a joke, Vis,” Gladio assured her, letting a broad palm gently rest on her back. “Sorry if that one was a little much.”

 

“There are worse jokes to make,” Vis replied, eyelids feeling heavy, “just a bit cruel to make a joke out of that.”

 

“Is it?” Gladio asked. “Why’s that?”

 

“Look at you,” Vis said, swaying on her feet a little despite being leaned against the elevator wall.

 

“Careful there,” Gladio said, “sounds like flirting.”

 

“Ha ha,” Vis replied.

 

The doors opened on to her floor and Gladio guided her from the elevator with a gentle hand. He walked down the hall to her room, going so far as to unlock the door for her. As he ushered her inside he said softly, “I’m not that much of a catch.”

 

She was too tired to do more than listen to it.

 

“Make sure you lock the door.”

 

Vis nodded, pushing it shut and following his instructions before she shuffled off to bed.

 


	8. Chapter 8

It was very rough going in the weeks that followed the housing assignments. The grid that they were able to bring online had not, thankfully, blown the Crown District. It had taken out several supporting pieces of the more-than-ten-year-old infrastructure, however, and as such all the crews went in to the cold season with heavy lifting to get things patched back together keeping the power going where it was needed. It stretched the Central Division workers thin, but when the need arose it was Ignis who proposed an increase in the size of the work force. Now there were fifteen of them, but they still only seemed to be breaking even.

 

Somehow, Vis had gotten set in charge of running interference between the various stressed out crews that were working on restoring the infrastructure failures, which had her in and out of the building several times a day.

 

Doctor Ross had given tentative approval for her to take up the increased activity, so long as Vis promised to stop whatever she was doing if it hurt too much.

 

(It hurt a little, riding the bike from one crew location to the other, but not enough for Vis to call it ‘too much’.)

 

The change was doing wonders for her disposition – she was getting sunshine and enough exercise that she was too tired at the end of the day to have any trouble falling asleep – but it meant that once a day she had to report back to the office and have a sit-down with Ignis to give him updates.

 

Vis was surprised when she came to make her afternoon report and heard loud voices in Ignis’s office.

 

“-not going to ignore it when you’re working yourself too hard!” a woman snapped.

 

“The reconstruction-” Ignis began, only to be cut off.

 

“Won’t get finished if everyone doesn’t pitch in,” she finished for him. “I get it, I really do, I’m just worried about you.”

 

With that kind of argument, it had to be Zoriedd he was trading words with. Vis considered her report and decided it would be wiser to take a coffee break rather than interrupt the pair of them. It was late enough in the day for it, and the report that day wasn’t pressing. In fact the temperatures were starting to drop to where the crew heads had suspended any work that had to be done outside, entirely. Today’s report would relay to Ignis that she’d be back in the office almost for the full shift starting the next day, and that the crew heads would be submitting materials requests directly to Prompto’s office while their crews did an in-depth analysis of the individual needs of each of the Citadel housing blocks.

 

As she was checking to see what was stocked in the break room – mostly coffee, a bit of questionable looking creamer – she decided that the whole report could wait until morning.

 

So, for once she knocked off at six, and took herself down to the cafeteria.

 

How long had it been since she stopped work at six?

 

Not since she’d been cleared to do the work that required the bicycle, and that had been more than a month back. The exercise was good, the food intake was steady so there was no real muscle cramping and such to deal with like when she’d been working her way up the ranks of the Hunters, but… Enough running around in cold weather, enough long hours making sure everyone had what they needed and knew how to get what they would need next and she was wearing down.

 

If she was being honest, which she tried to be with herself, the constant go-go-go was starting to wear on her, despite the high she got from the exercise. Still, she liked her job, and her boss, and she felt useful.

 

That was enough to get her through the day. It was enough to keep her moving as she dropped her file on her desk and turned her feet towards the cafeteria. She moved on auto-pilot, after all this time, but at least she wasn’t hurrying down like she used to.

 

Since the assignment of quarters, people had started really treating their places in the Citadel like home. That meant there’d been a rush to set up a way to distribute rations that could be cooked in everyone’s assigned quarters. And a rush to find useful items to cook with. There were still a lot of things missing, spices mostly as the farmers that were being negotiated with were mostly concerned with crops that people could eat, but enough was available that the crowd in the cafeteria was thinning from the constant rush of diners.

 

It wasn’t perfect, of course, nothing was yet. But the place was starting to feel more lived-in and less like a haunted mansion.

 

For Vis it didn’t feel like home, exactly, but she could tell by the faces of the newer arrivals that the Citadel was a wonder of convenience compared to how people had managed to survive in the outlands during the Darkness. Vis knew all too well what it was like to be concerned with the most basic of needs – a locking door against daemons, lights to keep them away, and water that ran – she’d lived it in the years after Lestallum fell. Sometimes she felt herself slipping back in to that mindset, even in the fancy carved hallways and carefully repaired rooms of the Citadel.

 

The place just didn’t feel like home.

 

Whatever else could be said for the Citadel, at least there was hot running water and food.

 

“You really need to eat more regularly,” a chipper voice was chiding someone behind her as she took her spot in line.

 

“At my size,” Gladio replied, “it’s not like I have much choice, Iris. You don’t have to pester me so much.”

 

“Well you won’t let me cook for you,” the chipper voice – Iris – was protesting, “what else am I supposed to do?”

 

Vis smiled to herself at the two of them. She knew the younger Amicita from Lestallum, and in an official capacity they were familiar enough even here in the Citadel. Iris had joined Monica’s contingent settling newcomers as they came in to the city. With commerce still at the bartering stage, it was important to make sure everyone had what was fair enough. She liked Iris’s outlook on things, for the most part, though sometimes she didn’t have the energy to keep up with the younger woman.

 

“If you keep causing such a ruckus, you’ll disturb people who just came here to eat,” Gladio replied to his sister.

 

“I will not.”

 

“You could just admit that you’re only following me around to see if you can catch sight of Prompto.”

 

“Gladio!” Iris snapped, slapping him in the arm. “I am NOT!”

 

Vis couldn’t help her chuckle. It hadn’t been her intention to discover the relationship between Iris and Prompto, but there had been only so much privacy back when she was on the scouting team. Prompto had turned bright red when Vis had stumbled across the two of them. Iris had been kneeling before him, lips wrapped around the length of his cock, and he flushed so red that Vis could see it on his stomach. She was, however, surprised that Gladio seemed so relaxed about it. He had more of a reputation for being a protective older brother type than was showing in his teasing words.

 

“The chuckles in the room beg to differ,” Gladio teased his sister. “Isn’t that right Vis?”

 

Holding her hands up, Vis peeked over her shoulder at the two of them behind her. “I didn’t say a thing.”

 

“That’s not fair, Gladio!” Iris said, smacking him in the arm again.

 

“I bet Vis has a story or two she could tell me about the two of you.”

 

“I don’t give in to gossip, Gladio,” Vis chided him.

 

“Just another of your admirable qualities, ~~One of the things I like about you~~ ,” Gladio replied.

 

Iris was pouting. “It’s not _like that_ ,” she said. “Prompto and I are just having fun. It’s not a crime.”

 

“No one said it was, baby girl,” Gladio said, “but you seem awful guilty for someone who isn’t doing anything wrong.”

 

“Both of you should cut each other a little more slack,” Vis said, shuffling forward as the line moved. She knew enough about the Royal Retainers and Iris that she didn’t feel too presumptuous for offering a little generalization, “It’s hard being in such close quarters with people you’ve known for so long.”

 

“Sound advice,” Gladio said, though from his tone it was more for Iris’s benefit than any amount of believing it.

 

They made progress through the line, and she gave Iris a sympathetic little smile before leaving them to their conversation. It was easy enough to zone out, thinking about how much there was to do the next day and wondering where she was in line for the cell phones that were being distributed. She managed pretty easily to keep up with Ilda, but since the baby had come Pyotra had faded in to the bustle of the days. There were a few friends she thought she’d seen names for in the rosters, people she’d like to look up now that the city was coming back together.

 

At the end of the line, just as the attendant was ready to ask if she’d be eating in the dining room or taking it to go, Iris piped up, “You should join us!”

 

“Iris, she may not want to,” Gladio said, hushing her.

 

“I wouldn’t want to intrude, at least,” Vis replied.

 

“Oh, come off that, Vis,” Iris said, “the company will be good for you too. Iggy keeps you running ragged. I’ve seen you in three different boroughs this week.”

 

“I have a bicycle,” Vis replied. “It’s a good work out.”

 

“Sure it is, but you could probably use some normal company.”

 

Vis glanced back at Gladio. The big man shrugged, and so she caved. The attendant handed her plates over on a tray, and she waited for the two of them before drifting over to the table Iris picked. Gladio went to get the three of them water, letting the two women settle down.

 

“You’re still staying in the Citadel, right?” Iris asked as they settled in.

 

“For now, just like everyone else,” Vis replied. “We won’t be opening the first of the off-Citadel housing until sometime after the start of the year. An even then I’m waiting to hear back about Austellus. I had this amazing apartment that overlooked one of the parks. It wasn’t huge, but it was home.”

 

“You’d leave the Citadel?” Iris asked, sounding scandalized.

 

“I’ve only lived in it for nine months, Iris,” Vis replied. “It’s nothing I’d really miss, at this point.”

 

“Sort of like an expensive hotel?” Gladio asked as he joined them, setting their glasses down between them.

 

“Something like that,” Vis said, nodding thanks for the water.

 

“Oh, but the Citadel’s the best!” Iris gushed. “It’s centrally located, it’s got running water _and_ electricity.”

 

“Not all of the repairs are finished, you know,” Vis replied.

 

“What’s not working?” Iris asked, seriously. “The damage to the Citadel was less than the rest of the city, the engineers finished going over it before you even arrived.”

 

“Nothing’s all the way finished yet,” Vis said. She leaned back in her chair a little as she ate, surprised no one had come around interrupting them to speak to one or the other of the Amicitas. “But it’s warm and it’s secure. That’s good enough for now.”

 

Iris frowned. “I just don’t like the thought of you leaving us.”

 

“I’m not quitting my job and moving to the provinces,” Vis replied. “Besides, Iris, it’s not like we really run in the same circles.”

 

“What are you talking about? Prompto and Ignis have nothing but good things to say about your work. What was it that Prompto said, Gladdy?”

 

“Astral sent,” Gladio supplied, tucking in to his meal.

 

“Exactly! And working with the three lunk heads is the same circle as me. You’re just so busy all the time, we haven’t gotten a chance to talk much before this.”

 

“Everyone’s busy,” Gladio replied.

 

“No one’s as busy as Iggy’s people,” Iris said, eyeing her brother. “Not even you.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“He works too hard,” Iris said. “Zori’s concerned about his hours. She was telling me over lunch-”

 

“Not this,” Gladio said. “You can’t just lean on me because your friend is concerned. Iggy’s strong, if she’s worried, she should talk to him.”

 

“He’s one of your best friends,” Iris protested. “You should be concerned as well!”

 

“Zoriedd was discussing it with him this afternoon,” Vis said, reaching forward and plucking her water glass from the center of the table. “I don’t think either of you have to worry about it.”

 

“See?” Gladio asked, gesturing to Vis. “Zori’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”

 

Iris rolled her eyes dramatically. Before she could say more her watch pulsed, giving off a series of beeps. “Oh darn it,” Iris said. “I’ve got an evening appointment.”

 

“If it’s with Prompto’s fly, can you try and have it indoors somewhere this time?” Gladio asked.

 

Iris flushed. Scowling at her brother, she rose, taking her plate and glass with her on the tray. “Ha ha, very funny,” she said. She looked over at Vis. “ _You_ I will catch up with later, ok? I’ll ask Prompto about Austellus and see when he’s got that on his schedule.”

 

“I appreciate it, but you really don’t have to. He said he’d let me know on his own.”

 

“Men can be forgetful,” Iris said with a wink. “It never hurts remind them.”

 

Vis laughed. Iris bent to kiss her brother on the temple before heading off at a quick trot. In the years since Vis had first met _Lady Iris_ in Lestallum, she’d grown up and in to the promise of her face – no doubt it was her Amicita heritage that gave her the same regal bone structure as her brother – but not anywhere near in to the height that her brother boasted. Iris didn’t even come up to her brother’s shoulder. She wore her hair longer, just down to the back of her neck, and she’d taken to wearing gray and white as accents to the black she customarily wore. As she headed off, Vis noticed a bit of a swing in her step and she chuckled.

 

“Sorry about that,” Gladio said.

 

“About what part?” Vis asked, turning to look at him.

 

“Iris. She can be… a handful.”

 

“I’m just surprised you’re taking her relationship with Prompto so well.”

 

The big man shifted in his seat a little. “I’m not sure I’m taking it as well as you think. I always knew Iris would grow up at some point, I just… I guess I thought there was a little more time for it.”

 

“Well you were a bit distracted for a while there.”

 

“I just didn’t expect her to… with _Prompto_ of all people.”

 

“He’s certainly got his charms.”

 

“If this is where you tell me that you’ve slept with Prompto _too_ , I’d rather you stop there.”

 

Vis laughed. “No, not at all,” she assured him. “When I met him he was with Cindy, now he’s with your sister.”

 

Gladio’s brows lifted at that. “But you considered it?”

 

“I didn’t say that, but I don’t waste time chasing after people who aren’t available. Besides, most people would say he’s a little young for me.”

 

“How old are you?”

 

“I guess you noblemen don’t have as many manners as I thought, you should know better than to ask a lady her age,” Vis replied.

 

That got a good, honest laugh out of Gladio. He looked a little more relaxed than when he’d been hounded by his sister. “I think I needed that.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Vis replied.

 

“You’re at least old enough to hold your liquor, aren’t you?” he asked.

 

“Depends on the drink,” she answered. “I’m not much for beer.”

 

“Well that’s good, because the only beer in the city isn’t anything worth drinking.”

 

“What are you talking about then?”

 

Before he answered, Gladio set down his fork and knife. His plate was clean, his glass was empty. “You finished with that?”

 

“Finished enough,” Vis replied. “I think.”

 

“Iris nags me about eating because she found my stash upstairs,” Gladio admitted. “She’s convinced I do nothing but drink myself in to oblivion every night after work.”

 

“Is she right?”

 

“Not remotely,” he said, pushing his tray a little away from the edge of the table. “But it can take me a nightcap to unwind, some nights.”

 

“Not exactly standard rations.”

 

“No,” he agreed. “But you still don’t look like you’re sleeping too well yourself. I don’t mind sharing.”

 

Vis considered that. She was pretty tired from the day’s work, but what Zoriedd had been arguing through with Ignis was no less true for her and the staff than it was for the Royal Advisor. She was trying to figure out a pattern to her bad nights, and some of them started like this one. Mental exhaustion usually brought on the nightmares.

 

“Just this once,” she agreed.

 

Gladio nodded. They left the table, stowing their trays and dishes for the cafeteria staff to clean up, and went back to the elevators together. They weren’t alone as they headed for the bank of elevators, others that were housed in the Citadel were coming and going to and from their shifts or meal. Vis drifted along behind Gladio, pleased to have him breaking a path for the two of them through the bodies in the hallway.

 

They waited with a group getting on to the West Tower elevators. The elevator ride was generally quiet. Everyone got off before their floor, and Vis ignored the discreet glance over the shoulder of the last person to leave the elevator before they were alone.

 

Gladio winced, slightly.

 

“Sorry about that.”

 

“About-?”

 

“Just the… I had a bit of a reputation when I was younger.”

 

“If a man and a woman can’t be friends anymore, then the world wasn’t really saved.”

 

Gladio’s lips curved in a smile. “Fair enough. If it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.”

 

“There are worse rumors to have floating around than that I’m the Shield’s lover,” Vis replied with a smirk. “There’s always the Marshal.”

 

He nudged her arm as the elevator doors opened again. “You might not want to make that joke too loudly. The Immortal’s rooms are up this way somewhere.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she chuckled back.

 

Gladio led the way down the hall, letting the two of them in to a suite of rooms that looked like a magazine spread from before the Fall of Insomnia. The furniture was ebony wood with charcoal upholstery and silver accents. The room was dark furnishings and cobalt walls with white in a few strategic places to brighten it up. It looked… strong, she thought, and familiar. Actually, Vis was pretty sure the room she walked in to had been featured in some society magazine. One of her coworkers, Quirina, had been a follower of all the royal headlines, and she’d paraded out a magazine in the office just after Vis started that was headlining an in-depth interview with the Prince’s newly appointed shield.

 

“I think I’ve seen this room,” Vis said, stopping as he closed the doors behind them.

 

“Wouldn’t be surprised, there’ve been quite a few photographs of it,” Gladio said. “These were the family rooms… ah… my father’s, I mean. Iris didn’t feel comfortable coming back here, so she took my apartment and I got the old man’s suite. Used to do anything official from up here, so.”

 

Vis nodded, following him inside. “Well, that _couch_ is asking to be a family picture… if you get those done in oil paint,” she said.

 

Gladio chuckled at that, motioning for her to take a seat as he headed across the room. “I think we did, back when,” he replied. “But I promise you can still sit on it.”

 

“Whoever furnished it knew what they were doing,” Vis added, crossing to sit on it. Despite the obvious age of the furniture it was comfortable, and she sank into the soft cushions gratefully.

 

“Thanks,” Gladio replied. “My mother’s taste. Here and at the estate, she redid all the interiors. Had a knack for coordinating things.”

 

“Her clothing store was surprisingly fashionable, for a war zone, you know.”

 

“What’re you drinking?”

 

“You mean there’s options?”

 

“Ask and you shall receive… perhaps.”

 

“Vodka-soda?”

 

“How about vodka and ice?” he asked. “I usually stick to whiskey myself, and I take it straight.”

 

“Well you told me to ask,” she replied. “And ice will be fine, just… a finger will be plenty, I haven’t had anything since… Six, I don’t know when.”

 

“Comin’ right up.”

 

Vis stretched, leaning against the back of the couch. She didn’t have anything this soft in her rooms, having figured it was easier not to get attached to the place just yet.

 

“You look about like I could pour you in to a glass,” Gladio said.

 

Blinking, she looked up to find him standing with two glasses in his hands. He joined her on the couch, handing over the one with vodka in it.

 

“Must look pretty bad if you’re saying that before I’ve even had a drink,” Vis replied.

 

“Just tired,” Gladio clarified. “A little uncomfortable maybe. You could take your shoes off.”

 

“You didn’t, and it’s your place.”

 

“It still feels like my father’s going to come in and chide me for spilling whisky on the carpet.”

 

Nonetheless he set his glass down on the table to the side of the couch and bent to take off his boots. Vis watched him for a moment before following suit.

 

“Have to be careful though,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. “I’m still wearing work clothes and if I get too comfortable I may fall asleep on you.”

 

“You look like you need it.” He propped himself back upright on the couch, one strong arm stretched out along the back of it, and took a sip of his whisky, closing his eyes.

 

Vis looked at him then, taking in his profile. He had a strong jaw, a splash of tan on his sunny complexion, and his longish hair was a little tangled. Seated closer to him like this, she could smell the sweat on him and see the dust of his workday. His fine apartment didn’t match up with the dust on his tank top or the scrapes on his arms.

 

“Why’s Iris really nagging you?” Vis asked, surprising herself as she took another sip of her vodka.

 

“Mmm,” Gladio said, shaking his head as he sank down in his seat. “Not tonight. I’d rather just enjoy the company. You can ask me some other time.”

 

“All right,” Vis replied, shifting so that she was facing him. She leaned her cheek against his arm and sipped her vodka. “Though I’m not sure how enjoyable my company is. We barely know each other.”

 

“I could argue that,” Gladio replied.

 

“Go for it.”

 

“You’re resourceful enough to figure out how to hold your own with hunters, which makes you stronger than you look and wily enough to survive when the odds are stacked against you. You miss your apartment in Austellus because you could see the park outside of it. At least one of your parents _was_ from the Provinces. Duscae? Cleigne? I’m not sure, but that honey-brown skin of yours reminds me a lot of Luca, so I’ll put money on Duscae. You’re good at your job, Iggy says so and he doesn’t have much patience for fools, which means you’re organized and persistent. You don’t complain much or you wouldn’t have lasted six weeks scrambling through the rubble with Prompto.”

 

He peeked an eye open.

 

“Did I get any of it wrong?”

 

Vis shifted in her seat, unsure how to take so many random details being pointed out to her. She sipped her vodka again. “Cleigne,” she said. “But all that isn’t… I mean it isn’t really knowing me.”

 

“Well, let’s say I like what I know,” Gladio replied. “And it’s more than enough to start with for enjoying your company.”

 

“I’m not sure how to respond to that, especially as you left out the part about my not infrequent bouts of late-night hall wandering,” Vis replied.

 

“I think there’s a prophecy somewhere about glass houses and stone throwing,” Gladio replied.

 

“Everything I know about _you-”_ she started, sipping from her glass again, “well, most of what I know comes from magazine articles that my coworker used to read aloud excitedly. She had quite a crush on ‘the strapping young Shield’.”

 

Gladio chuckled. “I’m not so young anymore.”

 

“Still strapping,” Vis replied.

 

“Well, we could go back to basics.” He set his glass down and held his left hand out to her, leaving his right arm beneath her cheek. “Gladiolus Amicita, but I won’t answer unless you agree to call me Gladio.”

 

Vis chuckled, sitting up a little. She shifted her drink to her right hand and put her left in his. “Viatrix Sursa,” she replied in kind, “But everyone calls me Vis.”

 

They shook hands, chuckling softly.

 

“I kinda like Vi,” Gladio replied.

 

“Well, if we ever get to the point where we’re making up nicknames for each other, I think I’ll be able to stomach that,” Vis replied.

 

He picked his glass up again and saluted her with it.

 

“How’d you know about Austellus?” she asked.

 

“You mentioned it once, in the cafeteria in Lestallum. Talkin’ to Monica, I think it was. Said you didn’t mind the view from the hunter’s bunk too much because of the trees.”

 

“And you remembered that?”

 

“It was nice to hear someone just… talkin’ about stuff that wasn’t mission strategies or battle plans. It was easy to get a bit… caught up in the fight without remembering why we were fighting for it.”

 

‘But still,’ she thought to herself, ‘he remembered it for years.’

 

“Did you ever go to Austellus, before?”

 

“I was a fan of the running path,” Gladio said.

 

“Wait,” Vis said, pointing at him around the glass. “Five am, that was _you?”_

 

Gladio lifted a brow. “Yeah, I had long days so if I wanted to get in a run I had to start early.”

 

Vis hid her chuckle behind another sip of her vodka. She hadn’t known who it was that took that morning jog, but she’d appreciated the view on more than one occasion. It made sense, now that she thought about it, now that she was more familiar with how attractive he was _up close_.

 

“You saw me.”

 

“You’re kind of hard to miss,” she replied.

 

He laughed. “Oh, so you _noticed_ me.”

 

“It sounds so sleazy when you say it that way,” Vis chuckled.

 

“It’s a two-way street,” Gladio replied. “I told you, I was a bit of a rake back when. I knew what I looked like. I didn’t have to wear fitted workout clothes.”

 

“Half the city would’ve cried if you switched to the baggy sweat pants look,” Vis assured him.

 

“The other half would have been relieved not to have such steep competition,” he assured her.

 

Vis found herself chuckling, and leaned her cheek against his arm again. He was warm and solid, and her eyes were feeling heavy. “I keep wondering if the park is still there,” she said softly.

 

“Shouldn’t be too much longer before we find out,” he replied. “Just be a little patient.”

 

“I think I can do that,” she managed, eyes sinking shut. She set the glass on her knee and let her hands rest in her lap.

 

“You’re falling asleep on me,” he said softly.

 

But her eyes were already shut, and all she answered with was a soft noise.

 

Gladio smiled, shaking his head a little. He plucked the glass from her knee and set it on the side table. Then he finished off his whisky and tipped his head back, letting his eyes fall shut.

 

*

 

In the morning, Iris came up to check on Gladio, letting herself in. She was prepared to find him slumped on the floor with his back to the couch. Half the time he didn’t even bother to get his boots off. He was burning through the whisky faster than he admitted he was.

 

She was _not_ prepared to find him slumped over the left arm of the couch with a woman draped across his side.

 

She was even more surprised to find that woman was _Vis_.

 

Not for any vicious sort of a reason, Vis was a nice woman. She was tall and strong, which Iris envied because no matter how much training she did now she’d never make up for how slender she was and her skin still burned and freckled with too much sun. Gladio seemed to enjoy Vis’s company, even, so it wasn’t that Iris was _surprised_ that it was her, just…

 

Iris gaped for a moment, wondering if she’d just come across ammunition to shoot back at him when he complained about her arrangement with Prompto. Then she noticed that the only thing either of them weren’t wearing was shoes. Belts, shirts, pants – all intact. There were two empty glasses on the side table past the armrest he was laying against.

 

“At least he didn’t drink alone,” Iris muttered.

 

The sound roused Gladio, who blinked and squinted against the morning light.

 

As he caught sight of her, Iris put her finger to her lips. Gladio started to talk anyway, but he shifted, and looked down to see what the warm weight on him was.

 

It was, Iris thought with a wistful sigh, adorable. He looked so surprised by the situation that she couldn’t make a sex joke at him. Instead she mimed a cup of coffee and backed quietly out of the suite.

 

She closed the door and went trotting off to try and catch the elevator, pleased with herself for not having woken Vis up. Iris caught it just as the doors were closing, and when Prompto saw her he opened the doors for her again.

 

“I thought you were checkin’ on the big guy,” Prompto said as she joined him.

 

“Gladio’s still… asleep,” Iris said.

 

“Well yeah, at this hour,” Prompto replied. “Usually you wake him up.”

 

“He looked… peaceful,” Iris said, choosing her words carefully.

 

“You’re bein’ a little vague this morning,” Prompto said. He shifted closer, sliding an arm around her waist. “What aren’t you telling me?”

 

“Prom,” Iris chuckled, swatting at him. “It’s nothing.”

 

“You know one of the best things about you, Iris?” Prompto asked, leaning closer to kiss her neck. “You’re an awful liar.”

 

She giggled at that, still surprised how he always managed to make her laugh. The elevator doors opened and she pushed him back to something resembling a respectful distance. He kept his arm around her waist though.

 

Maybe she could spend her mornings like this, now, if Gladio wasn’t going to drink himself in to oblivion every night.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Vis opened her eyes slowly when her bed _moved_. She hadn’t slept that well in months, and she figured it would have to be followed up by something going wrong.

 

“You’re a heavier sleeper than I imagined,” Gladio said.

 

That woke her up thoroughly, and she started to shoot upright only to have a warm hand still her.

 

“It’s a nice couch, but not big enough for you to keep from ending up on the floor if you jolt upright from there. And your ribs may be healing but they’ve got to still be tender.”

 

Vis nodded and his hand retreated from her shoulder. She took a look around, getting her bearings, and then sat up slowly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t meant to fall asleep on you like that.”

 

“Did you sleep well?”

 

“Yeah, but-”

 

“Then it’s fine,” Gladio replied. “So did I, if you’re wondering.”

 

“Of course I wondered that,” she replied with an awkward chuckle, reaching up to brush her hair out of her face, unsurprised when her fingers tangled in her curls. “I just didn’t mean to… ah this is awkward.”

 

“Not terribly,” Gladio said, sitting upright and stretching his arms overhead. “All our clothes are still on.”

 

His little joke broke the tension in the air. Vis chuckled, and shook her head. “I should get up and moving. I was supposed to get a report to Ignis yesterday afternoon.”

 

“The crew heads will be looking for me to get started before too much longer,” Gladio agreed. He hesitated a moment before getting up. “Ah… breakfast?” he asked.

 

“I need to grab a shower before I head down to the cafeteria,” Vis replied.

 

“Same,” he replied.

 

They both sat quietly, and then started laughing. Gladio rose from his seat, stretching from fingertips to toes, and Vis followed after with a yawn.

 

“If I see you when I make it down, you want some company?” she asked, feeling a little foolish now that morning had come.

 

“I think that’s supposed to be my line.”

 

“That’s not really an answer.”

 

“Yeah, I do.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

It didn’t snow that winter, for which all the returned citizens were glad. It kept the power consumption low, even in the newly repurposed buildings in the Crown District. The sun shone bright all winter, with little of the gray of storm clouds as though Rama himself was giving the people a break from foul weather. There was a break taken at year end, a work-stoppage that went on for a full week with everyone still living in the Citadel taking turns in the cafeteria, and rations signed up for long beforehand.

 

By February, the old rhythm was back again, and Vis felt a relief at the return of the now-normal routine. Even Ilda had been thrown off by the new year celebration, though it didn’t stop her from hosting a potluck meal for a group of scouts both current and former. It was even nice to see Prompto away from the Citadel.

 

As everyone was coming out of their haze of holiday firewater hangovers, a group of returning citizens made their way in to the Crown City.

 

The group of them caused something of a spectacle as they moved through the streets, dressed in black and not stopping to confer with anyone about directions or the lay of the land.

 

They were, however, noticed before they reached the Citadel itself. That the little group was escorted by Monica was the only reason any number of the workers didn’t challenge them before they reached their destination.

 

The walk from the gates still took most of the morning. Vis was just contemplating heading to lunch when her coworkers closer to the window got up and left their stations. She came over to join them and got a bird’s eye view of the little procession making its way towards the Citadel’s gate.

 

“What do we do?” Edastis asked. “Today’s the boss’s day off.”

 

It had all but taken the Astrals themselves for Vis, Lyncea, and Excolo to convince Ignis that he was allowed to take a day off. Not only, had they argued, was their staff almost quadrupled, but the Marshal was there if anyone needed to be ‘convinced’ to see reason in Ignis’s absence.

 

Vis generally liked her two-person team of assistants, but Edastis didn’t function well under pressure at all. He was very good at his job when it was steady and predictable. He was who she had advised Ignis would be best at transcribing the map data that was coming in, and he shined at it.

 

“I hate to bother anyone on their time off, but he’ll want to know this,” Vis replied. “Heremine, go to his quarters – knock politely! – and tell Ignis that we’ve got some newcomers that will need addressing.”

 

“Wh-why do I have to do it?” Heremine asked. She wasn’t normally a timid woman, Vis had been impressed by her ability to multi-task in the past few months.

 

“Because I’m going to go and greet our new guests,” Vis said. “And if Monica’s leading the pack, there’s got to be a reason for it.”

 

“Are you sure, Vis?” Heremine asked.

 

“You know that nickname I hate?” Vis asked. When Heremine and Edastis nodded, she went on, “I got it from walking right in to conversations like these.”

 

“Don’t you get nervous?” Edastis asked.

 

“Everyone gets nervous,” Vis replied, turning for the door, “but avoiding things doesn’t keep them from happening.”

 

There was a moment of hesitation, and then Heremine straightened up and hurried in to the hall. Vis gave Edastis and the other workers in the office a nod before following at a more sedate pace to where the elevators were.

 

In truth she _never_ looked forward to these kinds of confrontations. If Monica was escorting these people, it either meant that they were important or needed looking after. Either way, Vis wouldn’t back out of this conversation any more than she had the boiling point back in Lestallum…

 

*

 

The Darkness hadn’t yet fully fallen, but the daemons were increasing. There hadn’t been a formal announcement about Lestallum becoming a refuge or anything, but as it was the only place that had light and the light was the best way to keep the daemons out, people were congregating there. Vis had come in fairly early on, with the Hunters who had fortified the city against daemon incursion. The Hunters were used to this sort of thing, so they figured they’d be good enough to keep people safe. When the Crownsguard showed up there were some gripes, but that was nothing compared to when the Kingsglaive showed up. Something about the Glaive turned the Hunters downright hostile. The Crownsguard got stuck in the middle of the two sides complaining about each other, and as the Crownsguard were few and very far between, it made things difficult to mediate.

 

Any idiot could see that the only way for everyone to survive would be for the two fighting factions to work together. All the supplies – shards of meteorite to power the plant, food stores, basic necessities – lay beyond the erected walls of the city, and though their pride was loathe to admit it, the Hunters were getting picked off when they went out on supply runs. The Kingsglaive, on the other hand, were without a berth to rest in. The civilians tended to side with the Hunters – who’d been there longer – which meant that as long as the Hunters were annoyed the Glaive were unwelcome. Most of the Glaive looked like they were on their last legs.

 

So when Howard turned on one of the Glaive and everyone had taken a fighting stance in the little courtyard near the trucks, Vis lost it.

 

“Can we all stop acting like children!” she shouted, loud enough to draw the attention of the Hunters and the Glaive alike. Howard started to retort, but she glared him to silence. “I don’t want to hear it, whatever it is that you think is so important that you’re going to turn away the kind of help we need to keep from losing people on simple supply runs. The numbers are against us,” she said.

 

“You should just take our help,” the Glaive taunted.

 

“And _you_ ,” Vis retorted, turning on the Glaive, “after everything that’s happened, do you really think it’s easy for anyone to trust? Even for people who weren’t in Insomnia when it fell, the cramped accommodations aren’t the easiest way to start getting along. The Glaive is supposed to protect the people, just because you have magic doesn’t mean we owe you anything. Who do you think put up the walls around here? Who’s running the lights?”

 

It wasn’t the most eloquently worded of arguments for either side, but it was enough to get fists lowered and weapons tucked away. What garnered her the nickname ‘Arbiter’ was how fearlessly she jumped in to the middle of the argument between people more powerful than she was, and how ‘easily’ she managed to keep the two sides working together as long as Lestallum still stood.

 

*

 

Vis could only hope this conversation would go as well. She took the elevator down to the main lobby, setting her shoulders as she headed toward the front steps to meet the group that had arrived.

 

“As you can see, construction has already begun, you’ll find the accommodations still simple, but the power works and the water runs,” Monica was explaining as she lead the group in through the front doors. “Everyone who’s returned has been working to-”

 

The leader of the group was a tall, older man with thick streaks of gray in his dark brown hair and a beaklike nose under sharp brows. “While I appreciate the explanation, it’s unnecessary, Crownsguard,” the man said in a disapproving tone. “We have simply come to rejoin the population of Insomnia and retake our position among the people.”

 

Monica’s expression bordered as closely to a frown as Vis had ever seen her make to anyone not on the far end of a weapon from her. “While I appreciate your intentions,” she began, looking over to the hallway the man was still advancing on and catching sight of Vis. Her lips didn’t quirk in a smile, but there was relief in her voice as she said, “All new arrivals go through in-processing.”

 

Vis interrupted any retort with a bright, “I see we have some new arrivals today.”

 

The beak-nosed man turned to regard her, frowning at the sight of her standing with a clipboard in the center of the hallway.

 

Even Vis could admit her positioning was a lot like a tour-guide, and from the look of the embroidery on the black garments of these people they likely knew the Citadel and its layout better than she did, but all she really had to do was stall for enough time for Ignis to get down and take the situation properly in hand.

 

“And who might you be?”

 

“Administrator Sursa,” Vis replied, lying through her teeth. No one was bothering with titles at this point, especially not in Central Division where Ignis would rather everyone got their work done efficiently and without fuss. “From Central Division. I work under Adviser Scientia who’s coordinating the reconstruction along with the other Royal Retainers.”

 

“So the three of them survived, did they,” the beak-nosed man said with a frown.

 

“Come now, father,” a younger looking woman said, stepping forward from the black-clad group. She had the pale skin of a Lucian and the long, straight brown hair that had been fashionable in Insomnia before the fall. Her clothes were ill-fitting, no doubt due to the same dietary concerns as all the returned refugees had been dealing with, but they were well-tailored nonetheless. Even without the well-stitched embroidery her appearance shouted loudly that she was a noble’s daughter. She touched the older man’s elbow, “You can’t have expected any less from them.”

 

“I expected they lay down their lives for the sake of the King!” the beak-nosed man snapped.

 

Everyone was taken aback at the vehemence of the man’s words, even his daughter recoiled from him.

 

Vis pressed her lips together in anger for a moment as she watched him glower at everything around him. Whoever these nobles were, they looked like they had walked straight out of the society pages from thirteen years ago, almost like they’d been in hiding or seclusion just waiting for it to be safe to come out. They were a little thin, but all the other survivors came with scarred minds and bodies from their survival of the Darkness. No one else had the privilege of safety for the last ten years.

 

“Well I don’t expect you know much of anything about it,” Vis said in the hush that followed the man’s outburst.

 

He turned angry eyes on her, but she just tapped her fingers on the back of her clipboard. It was likely that his glower had been effective before the Darkness, sending his subordinates running or jumping, but this was not the Insomnia he’d left behind. His angry gaze was nothing to the glowing eyes of a daemon in the darkness, and though she didn’t have her spear she didn’t think she’d be too hard-pressed to put the man on his back. He wasn’t much taller than she was and he certainly wasn’t at any sort of fighting weight.

 

“How dare you speak to me that way,” the man growled back.

 

“If you’d all follow me to the cafeteria, I can make sure that you get something to eat before we begin the in-processing.”

 

_“You presume-!”_

 

“Nothing,” a cool voice interrupted the beak-nosed man’s angry outburst.

 

Vis didn’t need to turn around to know that Ignis had arrived. She could hear the soft tread of his boots on the marble, and there was a sort of air-pressure change of magic around him that she recalled from back during the Darkness.

 

But there were other footsteps behind his.

 

“The Royal Retinue,” the tall woman said, dipping her head respectfully.

 

There was a murmur that followed her actions, and the rest of the little knot of nobles – all but the beak-nosed man, actually – dipped their heads similarly.

 

Vis didn’t turn to look. If all three of the Retainers had come down, they’d felt the need to show a united front. Which was probably for the best, considering this man and, by extension, those who came with them were challenging the carefully relaxed dynamic of the growing community.

 

“You’ll find formality has been overtaken by rubble these days,” Ignis replied. “But Vis spoke truly, in-processing will best be accomplished on a full stomach.”

 

“Well then the Crownsguard can-”

 

_“Monica,”_ Ignis said, correcting the man sharply, “has other duties to attend to. And Vis has made the time to show you the way, Mister Pristis.”

 

Politely, Vis gestured down the hall in the correct direction.

 

Pristis glowered back at her, but a subtle noise from –Gladio? Prompto? – behind her was enough to check the look, and then Ignis added, “You should be grateful for her attention. She’s plenty of other duties to attend to as well.”

 

With a grudge ‘humphf’, Pristis nodded, and stalked in the direction that Vis had gestured. She followed, using her long legs to her advantage in keeping up. As she was going she chanced to look back at the three Royal Retainers.

 

Prompto threw her a hopeful thumbs’ up, Ignis gave her a nod, but Gladio had his arms crossed on his chest and was glowering at the group of nobles filing past them.

 

Well, Vis thought, at least she hadn’t done anything to earn a look like that.

 

It was, needless to say, a long day. In-processing the nobles had taken all of the afternoon, but she’d gotten through it with mostly good humor. She missed taking her own lunch, and though her stomach complained and her head hurt a little, she had a glass of water and ignored it.

 

Vis didn’t relish having to report her findings to Ignis, but she knew without having to ask that he’d want to know who had come home to join them. After getting all the data in to usable form, she went back to the office to cross-reference the names of the returnees with the old records from the Citadel, just on a hunch. As she finished, Heremine told her that Ignis was waiting for her report in his quarters.

 

She’d never been up there before, but it wasn’t hard. He had retaken his family’s rooms in the North Tower, on the forty-eighth floor. The symmetry of it made her think that it was by design, and she wondered whose rooms were on that level in the East Tower.

 

On the correct floor she left the elevator and went down to where she knew, from the layout of the West Tower and Gladio’s rooms, the front door would be.

 

The Scientia suite – floor? flat? She still didn’t know what to call these things – had the same thick wooden entryway with an ornate carving on the panel beside the door. The Scientia rooms had a bear carved in to the wood. Vis stopped, for a moment, to stare at it. There had to be some sort of meaning behind it, but she hadn’t ever studied anything like that, and her only other example… She realized after a moment that she hadn’t taken the time to notice if there was a similar carving on the door to the Amicitia residence. Disregarding her curiosity for the duty she was here for, Vis stepped over and knocked on the door, unsure if the call system was working yet as even cell phones hadn’t yet been prioritized.

 

The door opened a moment later, and Vis met with Zoriedd for the first time since the return of the light.

 

“Long time no see,” Zoriedd said, stepping back from the door and gesturing Vis to come inside. “I’ve been meaning to catch up with you. I understand I have you to thank for my transfer to the scouts.”

 

“I’m not sure how I feel about you thanking me for breaking my arm falling from the side of a building,” Vis replied as she came inside, but did so with a smile and took the handshake that Zoriedd offered.

 

Zoriedd chuckled, closing the door behind them. She wasn’t wearing what had been her uniform back during the Darkness. She’d replaced her utility pants and cargo boots with a pair of slightly too-long sweatpants and a tank top, and she wasn’t wearing a stitch of leather at all. In fact, she was barefoot.

 

“Oh, shit, it was your day off too, wasn’t it?”

 

Zoriedd shrugged. “Story of my life, really. Shit goes down in Insomnia, I lose my precious few hours of free time for the greater good.”

 

“I hope the two of you are hungry,” Ignis called from further in.

 

“I just came to give the report,” Vis said, following Zoriedd in to the living room, “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

 

“One that you took the data for at the cost of your own midday meal,” Ignis replied. “The least I can do is be certain you’re fed properly.”

 

“If you think you’ll dissuade him from this,” Zoriedd said softly, “think again. And don’t get that worried look on your face, he likes to cook. It relaxes him.”

 

With no arguments apparently valid enough to make, Vis nodded and turned the clipboard up against her chest. The room was as well appointed as the living room in the Amicitia rooms, though the layout was different and the furniture seemed altogether more modern and impartial. There were homier touches here and there – some photo frames that didn’t match the rest of the décor, throw blankets folded neatly across the backs of the couch and chairs, and a pair of strange looking statuettes on the side tables – that made Vis think that Zoriedd’s influence was making its way in to the room.

 

The Glaive woman took a seat on one of the couches, patting the spot beside her and tucking one knee under her. “Let’s catch up, while he’s finishing.”

 

Vis joined her on the couch, surprised at how soft it was despite the clean lines of it. “It’s been a while,” she replied. “I may be rusty on how to do that.”

 

“Yeah right,” Zoriedd replied. “Old friends are the best kind. Give it a minute or two to warm up the conversation and you won’t even remember how long it’s been since we were roasting anak over that campfire outside of Old Lestallum.”

 

That got a chuckle out of Vis. “It was off, Zoriedd. I told you it was off and we ended up throwing it up the following morning because of it.”

 

“How was I supposed to know the container wasn’t sealed properly?” Zoriedd replied.

 

“I don’t know, maybe you could’ve listened?”

 

And just like that, true to Zoriedd’s prediction, they fell back in to conversation easily. They hadn’t been a team, at least not the way that Zoriedd and Ignis had been during the Darkness, but they’d been friendly. It always felt safer, doing a run with Zoriedd on escort. She said as much, now, when it was safe to admit how dangerous all of that driving had felt.

 

“The feeling’s mutual,” Zoriedd replied. “I always felt a little better about the odds if you were at the wheel.”

 

“Which is strange, because before the Fall I’d only had my license for six months.”

 

That set Zoriedd to laughing. “Then maybe some of the other Hunters needed to go back to school for it,” she said.

 

“Dinner is served,” Ignis said from the doorway.

 

Both of them rose, and at Ignis’s insistence Vis left her report on the table by the couch. She followed the two of them back in to a room that obviously hadn’t originally been the dining room in the place, but had a smaller table and chairs and felt appropriate to the size of the meal. Vis had never had Ignis’s cooking before, but it was delicious. Zoriedd chuckled at the satisfied expression she made, grinning broadly as she claimed to only be with Ignis for his cooking skills.

 

“It’s not exactly fair to start that in front of one of my coworkers,” Ignis replied, folding his napkin and setting it to the side of his plate.

 

Zoriedd just chuckled. “She’s not one of your coworkers,” she said, “she’s your left hand. You can admit it without making me jealous.”

 

“Speaking of work,” Ignis said, rising from the table, “we do have a report to go over, don’t we?”

 

“We do,” Vis agreed.

 

“Leave the dishes,” Zoriedd said, gesturing Vis to follow Ignis as he headed from the little dining room, “that’s my job.”

 

It seemed like a fair enough trade off, Vis thought. She went with Ignis to collect the file she’d brought up and then he led her back to a room that looked more like an office space. There was a computer, but it was turned off. He took the chair at the desk, and took out a small recording device.

 

“I have a precise memory,” he said, “but to prevent confusion, I tend to record important details.”

 

“I’ve noticed the recorder before,” Vis replied.

 

“Do you mind?”

 

“No, of course not, I haven’t got anything to say that I wouldn’t want you to remember if you need it.”

 

“Thank you,” Ignis replied. He set the recording device. “Please proceed with your report when you’re ready.”

 

Vis nodded, turning her attention for a moment to her clipboard. Once she had her general summary arranged she began.

 

“Twenty-three lesser nobles returned today. Most are minor vassals or their children who seem to have depended on the Crownsguard for protection rather than having any training in combat themselves. Apparently the group of them fled the Citadel during the Fall of Insomnia and fell back to storage bunkers beyond the city’s outer wall. I’ve assigned them to the West Dorm’s extension for now, as the minors won’t have anyone to take charge of them. I thought that Monica’s people would be better off looking after the teenagers.”

 

“Did you inform her?”

 

“I set the task to Edastis,” Vis replied.

 

Ignis nodded for her to go on.

 

“Aside from the teenagers, of which there are eleven… nine of whom don’t have supervisory family members… If we group them by family in respect to securing them accommodations, we need seven units to house them. And not all of them can be single-bedroom units. There are five families among them, the Pristises are three, the Habilleuris are two, and there are four Gellers.”

“Did you happen to test the waters regarding their readiness to join the workforce?”

 

“Monica’s in-processing procedure is quite thorough,” Vis reminded him. “The teenagers seem amenable, though they’ll be unskilled labor. As for the adults… well, the skillset isn’t particularly useful. I mean there are a few clerks, but we don’t have much clerk-like work to do these days, unless I missed out on what they’re good for.”

 

“You haven’t,” Ignis assured her.

 

“There’s an additional problem. I checked the old records and we’re going to have a problem if they request their old rooms.”

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“Well, logistically when we started assigning people rooms in the Citadel back in October, we started with the ones that were in the best repair.”

 

“It was mostly the lower floors that were serviceable at the time, if I recall.”

 

“Exactly, their rooms have been given away. We can resituate people, of course, and some of the group may not even want their old quarters back.”

 

Ignis made a low hmmming noise. “I assume you’ve already cross-referenced who would need to be resituated?”

 

“I have,” Vis said. She rattled off the names of the four people who would be displaced, including herself. “The other residences are in the West Tower, which poses different problems.”

 

“The damage to that section of the Citadel was more extensive than elsewhere. I know that Gladio had the structural integrity assured, and we were able to get the exterior walls rebuilt before winter, but the interiors for several floors remain unfinished.”

 

“I’ll make sure there’s a list of the unit locations available tomorrow. I have a feeling that Mr. Pristis will want to speak with you directly about the housing situation.”

 

“Undoubtedly he will. If you wouldn’t mind also preparing a list of the skills of the individuals who’ve joined us, I would appreciate it.”

 

“That won’t take long, I made notes as I was interviewing them.”

 

“As I expected of you. You’re quite capable.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome, but it’s only credit where credit’s due.”

 

They sat in silence for a moment.

 

“If there’s nothing else pressing, we should both clock out for the evening.”

 

“Nothing I can think of,” Vis replied. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your day off.”

 

Ignis reached over and turned off the recorder. “I appreciate that, but you acted correctly in sending for me. It showed admirable discretion.”

 

Vis nodded, eyes drifting back to the pages on her clipboard. “Thanks, Ignis.”

 

“Well, if there’s nothing else… perhaps we should both enjoy the rest of our evenings. I’m sure Zorya is tired of pretending to still be doing the dishes.”

 

“I’m not pretending,” Zoriedd called back. “You’re _excessive_ when you’re trying to impress people. There’s a mountain in here.”

 

Ignis gave a soft chuckle at that.

 

“Well then let me lend a hand,” Vis said, rising and heading in to the kitchen before Ignis could get a protest in about it.

 

It was pushing late by the time the dishes were finished and they’d all had a bite of the delicious – albeit small, as sugar was still a well-regulated substance – desert that Ignis had made. Vis offered, again, to help wash up, but both waved her away. So instead she said her goodbyes and headed out. She closed the door carefully behind her, taking a moment to appreciate the intricacy of that bear carved in to the entryway, and then she made her way to the elevator.

 

No one came out in to the hall as she waited, and it felt like the rest of the whole floor was empty. Vis wondered, idly, if all the residences that the Retainers occupied were like this. She wondered if the floor was empty because it all belonged to the family or if the other rooms – because there were doors, somewhere, there had to be doors – were for servants. Well, servants or lesser nobles in service to the house. She’d never bothered to pay much attention to what went on with the nobility of Insomnia, they were too far off to care about. Oh, she’d voted. No Sursa that wasn’t disowned dared not to, but… she’d just never gotten caught up in the glitz and glamor of noble-watching.

 

It was her coworker, Drusa, who’d been an encyclopedia of that sort of thing. Drusa had been older than her, and a little vain. She always wore heels to everything, and her hair was always colored and her makeup was always on and thick. The one time she’d come down with the flu, she hadn’t wanted anyone to visit because she didn’t feel up to wearing makeup. Despite all that, Drusa was like a breath of fresh, chuckling air in the office.

 

The elevator doors opened, and Vis stepped in. She wondered what had happened to her old coworker, Drusa. They’d both left the office that afternoon, and Drusa had been on her way home to check on her dogs…

 

Drusa lived in Novalis, a neighborhood way out by the forest reserve on the edge of where buildings had been set. It might have survived intact if the entire reserve hadn’t caught fire the night of the Fall. Drusa was a bit high strung at times, and she was over-fond of her neurotic dogs. There was no way in the panic that night that the dogs had come out of hiding, and Drusa never would have left them behind.

 

It would be an unprecedented miracle if Drusa had survived. And somehow that weighed down on Vis as heavily as all the nightmares she’d lived through after the Fall. She felt _heavy_. Because she knew that there was no miracle that had saved Drusa. Like a good chunk of the citizens of Insomnia, she’d been swallowed up by the Fall.

 

Vis hit the button for the lobby and leaned against the clean ebony wall of the elevator. To get to her apartment – well, to get to the apartment she was staying in until she reassigned everyone, she’d have to go down to the lobby and transfer over to the North Tower elevators. Then she could sleep, which would be better than having to think about all the people who weren’t here anymore.

 

Her brain quieted obligingly, enough that when she got down to the lobby and was shuffling across to the North Tower elevator bank, she barely registered the empty space she was moving through.

 

“ _Vis_ ,” a deep voice said, loud enough to break through her stupor.

 

She turned, surprised to find Gladio was standing in the middle of the little concourse of elevators watching her. “H-hi,” Vis replied, feeling more than a little lame at not having noticed he was there.

 

Gladio came closer, then, one brow lifted curiously. “You ok? I mean I know we’ve all been busy but…”

 

“I’m fine,” Vis said, reaching up to rub her neck. She didn’t really want to talk about what was bothering her. Especially not to Gladio. From what she knew of the Fall, he’d lost so much more than she had.

 

“You know,” Gladio said, tipping his head as he watched her, “when I used to train with the Marshal he always said fine was a load of horse shit.”

 

“How charming of him.”

 

“All I’m sayin’ is that you don’t look fine unless fine means _fucked up, insecure, neurotic_ , and _emotional.”_

 

“Sometimes fine means attractive,” Vis said, folding her arms across her chest.

 

“In that case you’re fine,” Gladio said with a grin. When she didn’t chuckle in response to his flirting he reached out and touched her arm. “Somethin’s up,” he said.

 

Vis pressed her lips together and shrugged a shoulder, looking away from him.

 

“You eat?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Is this about Pristis?” Gladio asked, dropping his voice to a whisper.

 

“About-?”

 

Gladio motioned with his hand at the little elevator area they were standing in. It took Vis a moment to get that he was referencing the earlier confrontation with the nobles, and in the time that took Gladio had cast a look around the area and put a finger to his lips. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, holding a hand out. “Come up and have a drink.”

 

“I’ll be awful company tonight,” Vis said, “worse than normal, I mean. I wouldn’t want you to have to suffer through me.”

 

For a moment, he said nothing in reply.

 

Then he held his hand out, moving it closer. “Maybe I want to suffer.”

 

Vis blinked at that, looking up, but Gladio’s expression was neutral enough. He still had his brows lifted, just a little, and there was a hint of a smile on his lips that was welcoming. “I…”

 

“Don’t be alone right now,” he said.

 

He seemed insistent. And he was right, whether through some strange telepathic magic trick or just being generally observant. She felt awful, she had nothing to say, but she didn’t really want to be alone. “Just remember, you offered.”

 

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

 

She took his hand, warmed by the heat of his palm against hers, and he guided them over to the West Tower elevators, hitting the button. Vis let him take the lead, steering her in to the elevator, punching the button for his floor. He didn’t offer small talk as they rode up, just kept hold of her hand.

 

They got all the way to his floor in silence, and he led her out to his door. She hadn’t noticed, before, the carving on the Amicitia entranceway. It was a hawk. As Gladio opened the door she took a moment to take in the detail of the spread-winged beast. It had a branch in one set of talons and a sword in the other.

 

“Here we go,” Gladio said, letting them in to the flat.

 

The lights were off, but they came on as the two of them entered. Vis didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed that last time.

 

“Boots off,” Gladio said, stopping to kick his in to the corner at the entrance way. He squeezed her hand before releasing it, heading further in to the rooms.

 

Vis had to bend down to unlace her boots, but it was good to have something to do, better than the alternative of trying to find something to say. Once she had them off she rose, stepping in to the room. Everything was the same as it had been last time, which was good enough, she thought.

 

“Whatcha drinkin’?” Gladio called from the kitchen.

 

She blinked, turning to look in the direction of his voice.

 

“Mm, whiskey, I think,” Gladio said, watching her face.

 

“I didn’t—”

 

“Sometimes, you don’t have to,” Gladio said. He came out of the kitchen with a bottle and two glasses, coming over to meet her at the couch. He took a seat and then poured out two glasses. “Come on,” he said, gesturing to the seat beside him.

 

“I don’t feel much like talking,” Vis said.

 

“Good,” Gladio replied. “Neither do I.”

 

That prodded a chuckle out of her, one that she didn’t know she could manage. Vis took the glass he was holding out to her, took a sip of the whiskey and felt it burn all the way down her throat, and sat heavily on the couch beside him.

 

He set the bottle on the side table and leaned back, putting an arm across the back of the couch behind her. “Sometimes you don’t need words.”

 

Vis leaned back as well, feeling the warmth of his arm behind her head. The burn of the whiskey wasn’t soothing or comfortable, but she ignored the little disoriented feeling that came over her in its wake. She closed her eyes and nodded.

 

They didn’t say much of anything that night, just a few words here and there about whether she wanted a refill and how he preferred whiskey to just about everything. She maybe laughed at that, because it burned, but he didn’t question it and she didn’t offer more.

 

In the morning, she woke with her cheek against his collar bone and his arm heavy over her shoulders. Her neck was stiff and her back was a little sore, but she was warm. The two of them smelled a little bit like whiskey that they drank or spilled on each other, and the room was bright with light.

 

Gladio squeezed her shoulders before sitting upright and stretching his arms overhead.

 

And they each picked up and went about their day.

 

Without saying a damn thing about it.

 


	11. Chapter 11

“I know this is a ‘delicate situation,’ and all,” Ilda griped, “but I liked my damn apartment.”

 

“You could’ve said no, you realize?” Vis replied, lifting one of the boxes of Ilda’s things as they prepared the last of her things to move to her off-Citadel housing assignment.

 

_“I_ couldn’t say no if _you_ didn’t, you’re higher up the food chain than I am,” Ilda replied. “Besides, I’d rather have my housing off-site than move in across the hall from Petulant Pristis.”

 

“His daughter’s not so bad,” Vis tried.

 

“Oh she’s nice enough, though a little fancy if you ask me,” Ilda said, “but something about _Firmin_ unsettles me. Everyone was working so nicely together and now it’s like we’re all walking on eggshells to keep from offending him. I used to have customers like him. Impossible to please and ungrateful even when you go above and beyond for them.”

 

Vis lead the way through the door in to the hall, waiting until Ilda was done with her description before heading out to where anyone and everyone might overhear. “This is the last set of boxes, isn’t it?” she asked as they headed down to the elevator.

 

“Yeah, Prompto gave the other scouts a day off to help me move most of it. Even Quald came, I was surprised!”

 

“He’s not _all_ bad.”

 

“You say that from the privileged position of not having to work with him anymore,” Ilda said with a chuckle.

 

They set the boxes down next to the elevator with the few others that were there waiting to be loaded up. “I will never understand how you fit all this _stuff_ fit in that little apartment _,_ Ilda,” Vis said with a groan. “And I’m not sure whether to envy you or not. The rest of us are still worrying about having enough clothes so we can make it through the week and you’ve got _boxes_ to carry.”

 

“At least the furniture’s already gotten taken care of,” Ilda said. “It’s not my fault my apartment in Escarta was virtually intact.”

 

The building Ilda had her apartment in before the Fall in Escarta was a wash. Something had crashed in to one side, leaving a giant blackened hole in it, but Ilda had been able to recover almost everything from her old life.

 

“I won’t blame you for that, but I’ll admit it’s a selfish non-blaming. I’m hoping my place is still there, too.” Vis had been one of the pairs of hands to help her rescue her things on off hours.

 

“Well in your case I hope the building doesn’t have a giant hole in it. Austellus was relatively short, there might not be anything left.”

 

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed about that,” Vis said. “Do we have much more? The cart I borrowed won’t fit much more than this.”

 

“There’s just my suitcases.”

 

“Oh Six, tell me you don’t have a pile of suitcases to go with the boxes.”

 

“There are _two_ ,” Ilda replied, primly, as she pushed the door open and gestured to them. “I donated what didn’t fit well anymore to the clothing swap. Which reminds me, I have swap tickets for you for helping me with all this.”

 

The clothing swap had been a practical way to manage a very finite inventory. Almost everyone’s sizes had changed since the Fall, and even those that hadn’t found that most of what was in their possession wasn’t needed. Iris had come up with the idea of making a clothing swap to keep from needing to fast-track any currency before the vital systems were back in place. As people were able to access their old homes and apartments and the like, it had expanded to include spare furniture. Swap tickets came from donations or they could be earned by taking special shifts that ‘paid’ out in them.

 

Vis snagged the two suitcases and rolled them over to the door. “If you’re sure you won’t need them, it’ll be welcome. Though if all that’s at the swap are your old clothes then nothing will fit me.”

 

“Laugh it up, tall girl,” Ilda replied with a snort as she did one last walk through of the apartment, checking drawers and closets. They were all empty, even wiped down. She sighed as she finished. “Goodbye, swank apartment in the Citadel,” she said. “I’ll miss you.”

 

“Your new place is nice, isn’t it?” Vis asked, concerned.

 

“Of course it is,” Ilda replied. “I got my pick of the open spots. I’m just on the inside of the Crown District in a nice second-story unit off the main drag. You’ll love it.”

 

“It’s more important that _you_ love it,” Vis replied.

 

“We’ll both love it, then,” she said as she took one of the suitcases in hand. They both rolled the last of everything out in to the hall and headed for the elevator. “Are you _sure_ you don’t need help moving?”

 

“I don’t have a lot of stuff to move,” Vis replied. “Besides, how am I going to get swap tickets out of you if you turn around and help me move?”

 

When the elevator came, they piled everything that was stacked in to it. On the ground floor they made the slow transition of things through the lobby, down the side stairs and to the bicycle drawn cart that Vis had secured for the move. Others who were on work duty waved as they went about their business, making Vis feel like they were playing hooky to be out in broad daylight moving things.

 

“You sure the ribs are ok for this?” Ilda asked as they climbed on to the bikes that had been rigged to the front of the cart. “I’m pretty sure I’ll get flayed if I put you back in the infirmary.”

 

“I’ve been on a bike work for months,” Vis replied with a grumble. “I’m not going to mysteriously keel over from a little _more_ sunshine.”

 

“Probably not,” Ilda agreed as they started pedaling toward their destination, “but I have to tease you at least a little bit, I envy your tan pretty hard. I mostly just burn and peel.”

 

“Well I have far more boring hair than yours,” Vis countered.

 

The Scouts were still working their way through the city taking stock of what was salvageable and what wasn’t, and the sub-division Monica had been put in charge of – Infrastructure Restoration, at least unofficially – was sure that they could extend services beyond the Crown District before the end of the year.

 

In the meantime there was more activity on the streets. They were just starting to let people out in to the buildings in the Crown District, now that the streets were cleared and the infrastructure was working at least a little better. Despite feeling like she was truant for work, it was good to be out and see other people starting to settle in to the buildings. Aside from those who had recently been reassigned to off-Citadel quarters, there was a careful process for moving in to the reclaimed buildings, as anything not leveled by the Fall or the demolition crews still contained people’s personal effects. The issue had been solved by installing storage units for the original owners’ personal belongings.

 

That didn’t solve a more immediate concern brought by the return of the Nobles. The Nobles – Vis couldn’t help but think of them as that despite Ignis assuring her that any titles that had once existed were no longer official – had shifted everything around as far as housing in the Citadel because all of them had quarters there. Vis had given up the one-bedroom unit she’d been assigned originally to give the previous owners some normalcy back. It made her glad she hadn’t taken the time out to paint the walls or anything, and it wouldn’t been too much trouble to move. Prompto had promised to help.

 

Vis could have gone Ilda’s route and arranged herself a place outside of the Citadel, but after a fierce internal debate had opted to wait to move out of the Citadel until the re-civilizing of the city reached Austellus, which Prompto continually assured her was not too far off, though he warned her that the area wasn’t looking good.

 

Ilda, on the other hand, had been keen to get out somewhere that had what she called ‘fresh air’, and so here they were with a bike-cart moving the last of her things to her new apartment.

 

“This is the place,” Ilda said brightly. Her new building was a block back from the main drag, with an empty shop downstairs and a few floors of apartments up top. It didn’t take them long to get there from the Citadel, especially in the exceedingly mild February weather.

 

They parked the bike-cart in front of the building, and Ilda showed Vis the way upstairs before they started ferrying boxes back and forth. As they moved things, the door across the hall from Ilda’s apartment opened, and her neighbor – a dark haired young man whose name Vis couldn’t seem to remember – came out to give them a hand. He tripped all over himself to help, at one point taking a tumble down the stairs for his trouble. It was sweet of him, Vis thought, and she readily thanked him for helping with Ilda’s things. Still, she was glad when they were done and had dropped the cart off. She had a pocket full of swap tickets and she smelled like she’d been running a marathon, but it wasn’t a bad day, all said. She was even glad to return to the Citadel. That was a bit of a surprise, almost as much as when Prompto found her in the central lobby as she came back in.

 

“One chore down for the day?” Prompto asked with a grin. “Thought I’d give you a hand on the other.”

 

“I thought we were going to do that tomorrow,” Vis said. She was sweaty and tired, a lot like back when she’d been working with the scouts, and all she wanted was a shower and a good night’s rest.

 

“Yeahhhh,” Prompto said. “About that.”

 

“I really don’t like it when you use that tone,” Vis replied.

 

“I had a conversation with Iggy, and apparently he really, _really_ needs you back in the office tomorrow morning.”

 

“Astrals, Prompto, you’re not serious.”

 

Prompto cast a look around. People were just starting to filter through for the dinner hour, coming out of the elevators and heading over to the main cafeteria. Prompto took her by the elbow, gently, and guided her out of the flow of people. They ducked entirely out of the little elevator concourse area and in to a side hallway.

 

“Ok, what is it? You’re being mysterious, and that’s never a good sign.”

 

“Iggy pointed out that it’s not worth making an enemy of people right now, so he told me to use some discretion if you needed more information.”

 

Vis snorted. “Of course he did, because Ignis is a master of tact on top of everything else.”

 

“Most of the time,” Prompto said. “Just don’t put him on the wrong side of Imperials after- Look that’s not the point.”  
  
“What _is_ the point?” Vis asked.

 

“Now that they’re settled in to their accommodations, Pristis went to Ignis and asked to be put to work,” Prompto said. “He assigned the daughter to Gladio’s division, but he wanted to keep closer tabs on Pristis himself. So Firmin is working in Central Division.”

 

“Of course he is,” Vis grunted. Before he had even finished, she’d felt her stomach drop. She had kind of known this was coming, but still it was worse to actually hear it out loud.

 

“He started today. I think Iggy wanted to do a trial run to see if he’d fit.”

 

“Obviously that went about how everyone expected,” Vis replied.

 

“Exactly,” Prompto said with a wince. “So I’ve got a bunch of hands ready to help you move, but we need to do it tonight so you can get back to the office in the morning.”

 

Normally, Vis would not call herself a whiner. She did the work, she put in her hours, but she was _tired_ from helping Ilda move all those boxes. They hadn’t been super heavy, her friend had packed well, but there were stairs involved, and she just wanted to take a shower. “This isn’t fair,” she said to him.

 

“I know, I know it’s not,” Prompto said. “And we can’t force you to do it… But… if you can just pack your stuff, we can move it.”

 

“Who’s ‘we’?” Vis asked, setting her hands on her hips.

 

“The Royal Retainers moving brigade, of course,” Prompto said, flashing her his best smile.

 

“The _what?_ ” Vis asked.

 

“Ignis knew this would be a bit of a big ask,” Prompto said. “So he wanted to make the move as easy as possible on you.”

 

“It’s one day,” Vis said.

 

“Look, I don’t know why he needs you in so badly tomorrow, but you know Ignis, I’m sure he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

 

That was true, at least. Ignis was not the sort of boss to ask for things that weren’t necessary. It was one of the things that Vis liked about working with him so much. So this… Ignis must have a reason for it. A good one.

 

“I don’t have to move anything myself?” she asked.

 

“Not once it’s packed,” Prompto promised.

 

“Fine,” Vis said with a groan.

 

“Don’t sound like that,” Prompto said in entirely too chipper a tone. He pushed the door to the elevator concourse back open and guided her back out with that gentle touch to her elbow. “We’ll make it as painless as possible.”

 

“I’m not sure that’s possible today,” Vis said. She’d just moved her closest friend away from where they’d be able to see each other easily, and now her plans were being thrown out a fifth story window.

 

“All we can do is try,” Prompto said, leading her over to the North Tower elevators.

 

It was easy enough to catch an elevator up, as most people were coming down to make their way to the cafeteria. Vis withheld her sigh the whole way up, not remotely enthusiastic about this.

 

When they stepped off the elevator and turned down the hallway that led to her current apartment, she was surprised to find that Prompto hadn’t been lying when he’d called it the Royal Retainers’ Moving Brigade. Ignis, Zoriedd, Gladio, Iris, Monica, even _The Marshal_ was there waiting.

 

“This is over-kill,” Vis said, steps faltering as they neared her door. “I don’t think I have enough stuff for this many people.”

 

“Many hands makes light work,” Monica said with a smile.

 

And so Vis let everyone in, and they all set to work. The three women helped pack what clothes she had in to the suitcases that were sitting out, while the men took charge of the few boxes she’d packed – she really _didn’t_ have that many possessions, but even she hadn’t managed to keep from acquiring some – and for a while her little one bedroom apartment was alive with activity.

 

This was more people than Vis had brought in to the place since she’d moved in.

 

And she found herself worrying, a little, that someone would point out that she hadn’t painted the walls.

 

It didn’t take long for her possessions to empty out, and with it almost everyone that was helping. Prompto said they’d meet her upstairs. She looked around the place, not sure if she was surprised at how quickly it had emptied out or not. She’d been actively trying not to acquire too much in case she had to move, but seeing the place empty was a little… sad.

 

“Will you miss this apartment, do you think?” Ignis asked.

 

“I’m not sure,” Vis replied. “I mean I tried _not_ to make it home…”

 

“That does not always prevent a place from becoming so,” he replied.

 

“Yeah,” she said rather than nodding.

 

“I owe you a bit of an explanation for all this,” Ignis said. “I hope you will forgive my high-handedness in arranging it.”

 

“That depends on the explanation, I suppose,” Vis replied.

 

He stepped over and closed the front door to the empty apartment, closing out any listening ears that might be in the hallway. “Trying to fit Pristis in without causing undue trouble is taking more work than I intended. I thought it would smooth things over a little to have him start while you were away, but it seems that is not to be the case,” Ignis said. “He has a… specific sort of personality that makes acclimating him to the team rather… delicate.”

 

“If by ‘specific’ you mean ‘acidic’,” Vis said, “then I can see what you mean.”

 

“I appreciate that you can understand my meaning from my tone,” Ignis said, “but for the time being we will have to keep our understanding in tone rather than word choice. Despite his lack of influence at present, Pristis was well-connected before the Fall. While I cannot require it of him, we would all be best served for him to work with the reconstruction effort rather than against it.”

 

“Against it?” Vis asked. “Why would anyone be against it?”

 

“We are not exactly upholding the protocols and precedents of the Caelums,” Ignis said. His tone shifted, going soft. His expression changed as well, and he remained silent for a time.

 

It was not a look she had seen on Ignis’s face before. He was not the sort of person to get lost in his thoughts when in the middle of business. But he worked himself to the bone, and Vis thought that if anyone deserved to have a moment to his thoughts, it was him.

 

“I do not believe we are proceeding in a manner that is any different from what Noctis would have done,” Ignis concluded in a soft, reverent voice. He shook his head. “But it will be more efficiently accomplished if everyone works together. I must ask your help in assuring that.”

 

Since starting to work with Ignis, there had been long hours and stiff conversations with difficult people, but everyone had been onboard with the overall game plan.

 

Pristis was, undoubtedly, going to be a speed-bump on the road to rebuilding Lucis.

 

And Ignis was asking for her help.

 

“I want a raise for this,” Vis said.

 

A little smile played on Ignis’s lips. “When we begin issuing salaries, I will take that under advisement.”

 

“Do,” Vis said, unable to keep from smiling a little in return.

 

“In the meantime, I will see you in the morning?”

 

“Bright and early,” Vis promised.

 

“Well then, perhaps I should escort you upstairs so that you can get settled in for the night.”

 

“Probably a good idea,” Vis said. She could already feel the exhaustion sinking its fingers in to her muscles. Her elbows and shoulders and knees all reminded her that she was nowhere near as young as she’d once been, and that it had been a long day with too many stairs.

 

Ignis let them out of her old apartment, and Vis said goodbye as she closed the door herself and locked it for the last time. She was quiet on her walk to the elevator, and Ignis let that quietness linger as they went. For that, Vis was grateful.

 

Oddly enough, though she was moving apartments to let nobles back into their old rooms, Vis’s new apartment was above her old one. She was still in the North Tower, but now she was up on the seventeenth floor. As she and Ignis climbed off the elevator, she found the Royal Retainers Moving Brigade all in the hallway. There were no boxes in sight, but the pack of them all smiled and welcomed her, making sure that she could go in to her new apartment on her own. It was a nice little courtesy, being allowed to feel the space out without other bodies in the way.

 

Vis knew what to expect, for the most part. She’d assigned out all the room changes, and put herself in the west-facing rooms because she preferred her sun in the evenings rather than the mornings. It made for an easier time of sleeping in, when she could manage it.

 

Her furniture was placed in roughly the same configuration it had been before, at least in the front room, which was slightly larger than her old apartment. The boxes from that room, a grand total of three, were stacked neatly against one wall. She could guess from the tidy way things had been laid out that Monica had most of a hand in this and that the rest of the place would be just as gently settled.

 

“Let’s let her get some rest now,” Cor said from behind her. Vis turned to find that her moving crew had come in slowly behind her, but kept to the wall that abutted the hallway. Cor ran a hand through his short cropped hair and stretched. “It’s been a long day for all of us.”

 

There was a chorus of agreement to that, and the bodies emptied out of her unit until there was only Prompto and Gladio left.

 

Gladio was staring hard at the walls, which was a little strange, but Prompto diverted her attention from that with a question. “So, uh, when are you getting a real bed?”

 

“What?”

 

“Everyone else got off those temporary crate foam things before year-end,” Prompto said. “Yours just about crumbled when we were carrying it up.”

 

“I was busy,” Vis said. She meant what she’d said earlier, about not wanting to get too comfortable with her apartment, nice as it was. Part of being comfortable was getting all the right furniture for the place, which would be a waste of effort once she was able to get in to her old apartment. She could probably find the time to get better furniture if she wanted, but then she’d just have to turn around and trade it off once she got back to her place.

 

“Look, I know you’re waiting for us to clear a path to Austellus so you can move back in to your place,” Prompto said, “but it’s gotta be hard to sleep on that.”

 

“Prom…” Vis started, not quite sure how to explain to him that she didn’t get too much sleep anyway, at least on a normal night.

 

“And I’m pretty sure Monica’s already requisitioned you a better one, so you’ll have to take it up with her if you disagree,” he said with a broad grin.

 

“You’re insufferable,” Vis grumbled.

 

“Uh-huh, you don’t mean that,” Prompto said with a chuckle. “Let me know- Let one of us know if you need help unpacking-”

 

“Right, my six boxes are going to require so much help,” Vis quipped.

 

“- and thanks, you know? Iggy was a little nervous he was asking too much on this.”

 

“That’s why he sent you as his messenger,” Gladio interjected. “Vis doesn’t grumble nearly as much when Sunshine asks.”

 

“Aren’t we a little _old_ for that nickname, Gladdy?”

 

“Cindy doesn’t seem to think so.”

 

At that, Prompto blushed. “Yeah w-well Cindy isn’t here.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Gladio replied. “She’s not, just now.”

 

As amusing as the comedy show of the two of them was, it was getting late and if she had to get up and deal with Pristis in the morning, she probably should try to sleep. And before she could sleep she had to shower. Vis politely cleared her throat. Both men looked at her, and their expressions shifted to ones of contrition.

 

“Sorry!” Prompto said. “We’ll just go, and talk later?”

 

“No problem,” Vis said.

 

At that the two of them headed for the door. Vis followed them over. Prompto bustled his way out in to the hall, but Gladio lingered at the door. He put a hand on the doorframe for a moment, glancing back at the living room behind her.

 

Even though the door was open and Prompto was in the hallway, it felt like it was just the two of them standing there. She was growing familiar with that, with him, at least a little bit.

 

“Something wrong?” Vis asked.

 

His gaze returned to her, and she couldn’t quite read his expression, but his lips softened into something like a smile as he said, “No, just… you keep an eye on the place, yeah?”

 

“I’m going to be living here, so I can’t imagine I won’t.”

 

“Mm,” Gladio said. He tapped his fingers on the door frame and offered a slightly fuller smile. “Have a good night, Vis.”

 

“You too, Gladio,” she replied.

 

And then he left, closing the door quietly behind him.

 

Vis tried not to wish he’d stayed to talk a little more, even though she was tired enough that she didn’t know what she’d say. She locked the door, sealing the rest of the world outside just like she had during the Darkness, and turned around to face her empty apartment.

 

In the months since she’d been back, and in the time since she’d been assigned her own quarters, having somewhere quiet and safe to come home to at the end of the day had been enough to keep her calm and collected. But closing the door on the others and standing in her new apartment felt empty in a way that being alone hadn’t felt in her last place.

 

For the first time in a while, she wished the people had stayed and that it wasn’t empty.

 

Rather than dwell on it, she went over to the boxes stacked so neatly and started unpacking them. Working would keep her mind off it until she could fall asleep.

 

At least she hoped it would.

 

Hope did not always yield results the way that hard work did. Vis slept poorly, and the morning came far too soon. Still, she made herself presentable and headed back in to the office. Ignis met her at the door to her office space with his lips pressed together in a way she was coming to recognize as his unhappy face. It didn’t make her enthusiastic about the work she had to get done that day, especially considering how much sleep she _hadn’t_ gotten the night before. Ignis followed her inside her office, closing the door behind them.

 

“Pristus hasn’t arrived yet,” Ignis said, “but it shan’t be long until he does. For anything else that may be said of the man, he is punctual.”

 

“What task did you set him?”

 

“I have him processing through the requisitions and fulfillments from the inventory.”

 

“Those have been a bit backlogged,” she allowed.

 

“Precisely.”

 

“How’s the team taking it?”

 

“Stiffly,” Ignis said. “We’ll be carrying on with our usual concerns, but there’s been an… additional request.”

 

“From who?”

 

“For.”

 

Vis tipped her head. “All right, then, _for_ whom?”

 

“For the Scouting department.”

 

“That’s a little odd.”

 

“Ostensibly Central oversees all the crew related concerns, which includes, under the Marshal’s guidance, the effectiveness of the three divisions overall. Monica noted that since your departure, the Scouting division hasn’t been as… efficient.”

 

“Ilda hasn’t mentioned anything.”

 

“I doubt she would,” Ignis said. “You’ve never mentioned, now or before, the hours you put in additionally working on the map updates.”

 

“I just did them.”

 

“Precisely,” Ignis said. “All those who’ve lasted in the Scouting Division are similar. Prompto is good at what he does, but he’s not the very organized. I’d been considering for a few weeks how best to handle the situation.”

 

“You want me to switch back?”

 

“I don’t believe Central can do without you,” Ignis said, honestly. “There are other organizational personnel that might be re-tasked with his division, but I considered that it might seem… a vote of nonconfidence in Prompto’s abilities if, say, Monica were reassigned to his offices.”

 

“That would be a bit uncomfortable. You sound like you have a solution?”

 

“Perhaps,” Ignis said. “I reviewed your list of the returned nobles, and therein may lie our solution.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“The Crownsguard was, technically, the military guard of the royal family, but several kings ago that stretched to include a broader range of protection than simply the physical or even the magical aspects of an attack.”

 

“I don’t think I follow,” Vis said.

 

Ignis lifted a file from the top of her desk and handed it over. “Read this, and I believe you will. Miss Pagoni was not fully invested in her position with the Royal Archives, but she was the daughter of Head Archivist Pagoni, who was more than competent at her job. I can only hope her daughter followed in her footsteps, as it would seem she did if she was nearing the end of her apprenticeship at the time of the Fall.”

 

Vis opened the slim file. It was only a few pages, carefully written on smudged paper. “If you think she’ll work out… what do you need me to do?”

 

“Other than confirm my hopes? You’ve worked, successfully, with Prompto. You’re still half-Scout despite how well fit-in you are in Central. I feel there’s no one better situated to evaluate whether Miss Pagoni will suit as a more permanent fixture in the Scouting Division.”

 

That… didn’t seem the most terrible thing to try and figure out. “Ok, but is that going to help with Pristis?”

 

“You back at your desk will settle the nerves of the rest of our staff,” Ignis said, “and this will remind Pristis that he is not so important as he thinks. He’s been lording over everyone the state of the requisitions since he started.”

 

“One of those, is he?”

 

“Precisely.” Ignis straightened up from where he was leaning, and offered a slim smile. “Do you have any questions?”

 

“Not really. Read the file, talk to Miss Pagoni, I can handle that.”

 

“Thank you,” Ignis replied. He put a hand on her shoulder in thanks, nodding before he departed the room.

 

As Ignis departed, Vis noticed he crossed paths with Pristis, who was on his way in. When he’d stalked to the head of the dusty group of nobles, he’d been pale and gaunt. In the days since, he’d regained some of his color, though he had yet to fill out any. As she watched, he turned to look over at her office, a frown marring his lips, and huffed as he turned in to the main, open office where most of the staff worked.

 

Well, wouldn’t _that_ be delightful to have for greeting as time went on.

 

Rather than dwell on it, Vis turned her attention to the file she’d been given. The first two pages were a recount of Edurne Pagoni’s skills from before the Fall in Monica’s neat and blocky handwriting.

 

The back of the second page included a summary of the situation in the bunkers during the Darkness. The account wasn’t terribly violent, but was still enough to send a shiver down Vis’s spine. She’d thought, when the returning nobles walked in their black-clad processional up to the Citadel, that these nobles had simply waited out the Darkness in comfort. While they had not needed to take up arms against the daemons, there had been nothing comfortable about the accommodations. The bunkers were old and out-dated, as was the food supply, and though there was no detailing on the reasons for it, the population in the three that had been occupied had dwindled drastically over the years.

 

With what everyone knew about where daemons came from, Vis could only imagine what had to have been done with the bodies of their dead.

 

It certainly gave a new perspective on the situation they’d come from. Even a better understanding didn’t excuse Pristis’s holier-than-thou behavior, but it did give Vis hope that perhaps Miss Pagoni wouldn’t be so implacable.

 

The rest of the pages in the file, few though they were, were filled with logistical information. Miss Pagoni had not yet been assigned rooms, because her mother’s quarters had been located in the North Tower in the section that was still not habitable. She was staying in the North Dormitory wing, and primarily was assigned to the cafeteria crew for her work.

 

Vis waited until after lunch was complete before she went down to find her. The other, more seasoned cooks pointed Vis in the direction of one of the little courtyards off the supply hall for the kitchens. Vis found her sitting in the sunshine with her shoes off and her legs stretched out in front of her.

 

Edurne Pagoni was of average height, with her dark, wavy hair pulled back neatly in a pony-tail that hung down past her shoulders in a braid. Her clothes were still a little too loose on her, and looked to be the same black uniform all the returned nobles had been wearing. She had rolled up her sleeves and her pantlegs, but everything was clean and well tucked in to itself. She looked very… neat and tidy, Vis thought.

 

Her expression, though… there was something absent from her gaze. Vis wondered if the young woman was itching for a cigarette or what thoughts might be going through her head, and if the dark circles under her eyes were from sleeplessness or an indication of the usual color of her pale tan skin.

 

“I don’t want to startle you,” Vis said as she came out in to the sun. After reading the report, she could understand why the sunlight might be a thing Pagoni was seeking out. She wasn’t the only one propped up in the courtyard, but she was the only one with so much skin exposed to the sun. True, the little courtyard was mostly shielded from the worst of the February temperature, but there was still a bit of bite to the air.

 

“I’m not particularly excitable,” Pagoni replied. “Sorry if my dress isn’t completely standard… I just finished my mid-shift.”

 

“You’re more than fine,” Vis replied, taking a seat and slipping her boots off to enjoy the sun as well.

 

“You were there at in-processing,” Pagoni said after a moment. “Firmin was atrocious to you. I’m so sorry for that.”

 

“You know him?”

 

“Not exactly, or at least we’re not familiar. I mean, I didn’t know I was supposed to know him and then I spent ten years in a small set of rooms with him.”

 

“I don’t follow.”

 

“It’s… it’s not that important,” Pagoni said. Her expression shuttered entirely and she looked down at her legs, biting her lip. “I hadn’t met him before I found my way inside, and I… we both knew someone. I mean we had someone in common that was… unexpected. H-he died.”

 

A lot of people had died. Vis had lived through that, in Lestallum and after, but somehow the little stutter in Pagoni’s speech as she recalled who she’d lost made Vis’s loss seem closer than it had before. Even in the sunshine.

 

“If this is a work evaluation, I promise I’m learning my way around the kitchens,” Pagoni said. She tucked her hands underneath her thighs, but not before Vis caught sight of the scratches on her hands and forearms. They were fresh, not scarred, which meant they had to have come from her work assignment.

 

“It’s not a work evaluation,” Vis assured her. “Well, not about how you’re doing in the kitchens,” she said, offering a little smile.

 

Pagoni offered one back. “What can I do for you, Administrator?”

 

“Well, you can start by calling me Vis.”

 

“Is that… allowed?” Pagoni asked.

 

“We’re not nearly so formal in the Citadel as the last time you visited,” Vis assured her. She considered the younger woman. “Will that make you uncomfortable?”

 

“Not remotely,” Pagoni said. Her expression eased, at that, and the smile she offered was more open.

 

Over the course of the little interview, Pagoni opened up further. Vis had a general idea of what all the hastily cobbled together departments were working on, and she more or less knew how they functioned. Pagoni seemed a very thorough, detail-oriented sort of person from the questions she asked about it all. She also seemed more than willing to work wherever she was needed, as she considered Insomnia her home, and though she seemed a little quiet, she was easy to talk to once you got her going.

 

For her detail-oriented nature, Vis knew exactly where Pagoni would be most useful.

 

With Prompto.

 

That afternoon she returned to her office to make a paper copy of her recommendations, as well as a secondary interview with Prompto and Ilda, who had been in charge of all Prompto’s paperwork since Vis had come over to Central and was starting to lose patience with him. As Vis set down to outline what she thought would work best in terms of training, a chuckle drew her attention up from the page.  The staff from the open office were heading out for the day.

 

Pristis was among them.

 

Vis resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the man’s scrutiny, instead nodding to him and returning to the page. She knew she took longer at it than she needed to, but the thought of meeting Pristis in the cafeteria was enough to keep her from being hungry at all.

 

By the time she finished, the sun was down behind the wall, and the last colors of sunset were fading.

 

A knock on the doorframe of her office startled Vis out of her paperwork, and she looked up to find Gladio was there. And he had a bag that smelled a lot like food. “I hope I’m not interrupting, _Administrator,”_ he teased.

 

“I made that up, and you know it,” Vis said, shaking her head.

 

“Sure you did, doesn’t mean you haven’t gotten an upgrade since then,” he replied, nodding to the office she was in. “It suits you.”

 

“Well, when you put it that way,” Vis said, straightening up and straightening the stack of papers in front of her until they were perfectly arranged. “What can I do for you, Mr. Amicitia?”

 

Gladio snagged the only other chair in the room, dragging it over to the desk. “Never call me ‘Mr. Amicitia’ again, for starters,” he said, scooping aside a couple file folders to make space for the bag he’d brought. “It always reminds me of my middle-school homeroom teacher chiding me for coming in with bruises.”

 

“Why were you coming in with bruises?” Vis asked, setting aside the pages.

 

“I started training young. By middle school I’d hit my first growth spurt, and I started on weighted weapons.”

 

Vis hummed at that, trying to picture a smaller Gladio. She failed, and chuckled. “Did you bring me dinner?”

 

“I brought _us_ dinner,” he corrected, nudging the bag closer toward the center of the desk. “Figured we could both use a bit of peace and quiet after a day full of Pristises.”

 

“Prompto did mention that the daughter was assigned to your office.”

 

“Part-time for now,” Gladio said. “There’s a younger sibling, brother, I think, that she’s looking after. Apparently the mother didn’t make it.”

 

She reached for the bag and began to take the containers of food out. “Before or after the Fall?”

“Before,” Gladio said. “Sometime after the younger brother was born.”

 

Vis nodded, setting the two containers out on the table and picking a fork and napkin from the bag. “That’s a small mercy. I just interviewed one of their fellow survivors, and they took some pretty serious casualties during the Darkness.”

 

He nodded, reaching for his own fork. “Let’s talk about something that’s not… that,” he said. “It’s not really polite dinner conversation.”

 

“Are we politely having dinner?”

 

“I was polite to bring it to you,” he said, fishing the canteen and the two small cups from the bag to pour them each some water.

 

“You were,” she agreed. Just sitting there with him was nice, especially after the strange feeling of being watched that she’d had all day. Every time Pristis had walked past her office door she felt him, almost the same way she’d been able to tell when one of the Glaive was working magic during the Darkness.

 

“How’s the apartment?”

 

Blinking as she picked up her fork, Vis looked over at him. “A bit soon to ask that, isn’t it?”

 

“Maybe, but you’re the one that pointed out you didn’t have much to unpack.”

 

“I didn’t.”

 

“Did you get it all situated?”

 

“Yeah,” Vis replied. Thinking about unpacking reminded her of how empty the apartment had felt.

 

“… but?”

 

“It’s big,” Vis replied. “My old place was only a one-bedroom, this one has three.”

 

“Your old apartment was from a section for single-workers,” Gladio explained. “Retired servants of the crown whose children had succeeded them, newly appointed people who weren’t established… children too old to stay with their parents but still doing crown work.”

 

“So now I’m… in the family section?”

 

“It’s probably more accurate to say that you’re in the essential personnel section,” Gladio said. He picked up his container. “Which was a nice touch, reminding Pristis of you being the _Administrator_ and all, though I’m sure you didn’t know that when you did it.”

 

“Oh Six, no wonder he glares like he’d like to burn a hole through me.”

 

“I think that’s just his face,” Gladio replied, tucking in to his dinner.

 

“I try not to be severe on anyone’s looks,” Vis replied. “But if that’s true it’s awful.”

 

“Don’t worry too much about it. Turnabout’s fair play,” Gladio said. He took another bite of his food. “Let’s talk about something that’s not him.”

 

“I don’t have much going on other than work, right now,” she admitted.

 

“That’s pretty common,” he replied. “I’m the same.”

 

“So it’s not like… I mean I don’t have a lot to talk about.”

 

“Do you like reading?”

 

The question caught Vis off-guard a little. It took another bite to come up with her answer. “When I get a chance to. There wasn’t enough light or time during… the Darkness. Everything felt so… urgent.” Talking about that made the food in her mouth taste wrong. Her tongue felt coated in something… oily. She struggled to swallow her bite, trying not to pay attention to the way her stomach turned over. “D-do you?”

 

“It’s one of my favorite hobbies,” Gladio said, nodding.

 

They ate in silence for a few moments, Vis nearing the end of her little container. She stared at it, trying to think of more to say.

 

“Novels mostly,” he added. “Iggy was the history buff. Prompto mostly read… magazines.”

 

Vis looked up at that little hesitation, lifting a brow at him. “That sounded different.”

 

“When he was twenty? Yeah. It was. He was… uh, pretty normal for a twenty-something, honestly.”

 

“Hormones?”

 

“I think those are supposed to wear off at some point.” Gladio coughed politely, dropping his utensil into his container and setting the whole thing on the table before stretching his arms overhead. “I’m full enough.”

 

Poking at the last few bites in hers, Vis nodded and set her utensil down as well. “Yeah.”

 

“You don’t like reading, do you?”

 

“What?”

 

Gladio gestured. “You got a little… something. I figured you were just being polite.”

 

“That had nothing to do with reading,” she admitted. “It was… thinking about why I haven’t.” She couldn’t help the little shiver that raced down her spine. “You mentioned your library before.”

 

He watched her for a moment, as though trying to decide if she meant what she’d said or not. “I’m surprised you remember that.”

 

“Give me a little credit.”

 

“I give you plenty,” he replied. “I just also know you were medicated at the time.”

 

“Not _that_ medicated,” Vis replied.

 

With a chuckle, Gladio rose from his seat, scooping up her discarded container and stacking it on his. He leaned close enough to whisper, “Actually yeah, _that_ medicated. I was standing in your room for almost ten minutes before you noticed me.”

 

“You were not.”

 

“I was,” Gladio said, straightening up. He paused, half-turned for the door. “You done for the day, or you stayin’?”

 

Vis turned her attention to the stack of pages that had to do with Pagoni and the training regime she was recommending to integrate her with Prompto’s division. Everyone else was gone for the day, and the halls below were probably already mostly empty with most having already turned in for the night. And she had an early morning tomorrow when instead of situating her things in her new apartment she would be here in her office making a _point_ to Pristis about the organization of the workforce.

 

“I’m done for the night,” she decided.

 

“Well, then.” Gladio shifted the containers to his left hand and offered her his right.

 

She lifted her brows at him.

 

“I suggest a little fresh air to clear your head before bed,” he said. “Maybe a drink?”

 

Putting her hand in his, Vis let him pull her up to her feet. From the way he did so it was almost like she didn’t weigh anything. “People may talk, you know.”

 

An easy smile broke out on his lips at that. “Let ‘em.”


End file.
